30th October 2026
The Chancellor's Budget has offered households a collection of measures designed to ease the cost of living. Lower energy costs, help with household bills, changes to fuel duty and some reductions in the cost of groceries have all been presented as evidence that the Government understands the financial pressures facing ordinary families.
But there is another side to the story.
Taxes on some forms of income are increasing, frozen tax thresholds continue to pull more people into higher tax liabilities, employers face higher wage costs and the economic outlook remains uncertain.
So is this a Budget that genuinely leaves people better off, or one that gives something back with one hand while quietly taking more away with the other?
The first evidence from public opinion surveys suggests that people welcome many of the individual announcements but remain unconvinced that their overall financial circumstances are about to improve.
A Budget that the public considers reasonably fair
An early YouGov survey for The Times, conducted on 28 and 29 October among 2,036 adults across Great Britain, provides an interesting insight into public reaction.
Forty-five per cent considered the Budget fair, compared with 20 per cent who regarded it as unfair. This makes it the most positively received Budget on this particular measure since March 2021.
That is a significant improvement on the reaction to last year's Budget, when 48 per cent considered it unfair and only 21 per cent thought it fair.
However, the more revealing figures concern what people expect to happen to their own finances.
Only 15 per cent believe the Budget will improve their family's financial position. Twenty per cent expect to be worse off, while 56 per cent think it will make no real difference.
In other words, people may accept the general direction of the Chancellor's decisions without believing that they will personally benefit.
There is also considerable pessimism about the wider economy. Seventy-four per cent believe the economy is in a bad state, while 59 per cent expect it to deteriorate over the coming year.
These figures suggest that the Chancellor has achieved a more favourable immediate reception than last year, but has not yet restored public confidence in the economic outlook.
YouGov
The measures people actually welcome
There is little doubt that several Budget announcements have struck a chord with the public.
Among the most popular were:
- Removing gas standing charges.
- Delaying the planned 5p increase in fuel duty.
- Extending the VAT reduction on electricity.
- Temporarily removing tariffs on a range of groceries.
- Increasing the threshold for small business rate relief.
- Providing a £100 energy payment to eligible households.
YouGov found that 83–84 per cent supported the changes to gas standing charges, fuel duty and electricity VAT.
Even the £100 energy payment received support from 68 per cent.
These are understandable reactions. People struggling with household bills are likely to welcome anything that reduces regular expenditure.
But there is a difference between welcoming a measure and believing it will transform household finances.
A £100 payment is useful, but it is a one-off contribution. A reduction in energy costs may help over a longer period, but it does not automatically compensate for higher food prices, housing costs, insurance, transport and taxation.
The Government can point to the individual savings, but families have to deal with the total cost of living.
The less welcome side of the Budget
The difficulty is that the money being handed back to households has to be considered alongside the money being collected elsewhere.
One of the most important continuing pressures is fiscal drag.
Income tax thresholds have remained frozen, meaning that as wages and pensions increase, more people can find themselves paying tax or moving into higher tax bands even when their spending power has not improved.
This is particularly relevant to pensioners and people on modest or middle incomes. A pension increase may look welcome, but if it pushes someone further into taxable income, the amount they actually retain can be considerably smaller than the headline increase suggests.
The Budget also introduces a 2 percentage point increase in tax on income from property and savings interest. That will affect landlords and people receiving interest on savings, although the precise impact will depend on their circumstances and allowances.
It is worth remembering that savings interest is not necessarily taxable for everyone. Personal Savings Allowances and other tax-free allowances still matter.
There is also a wider issue. The Government has chosen to provide some immediate relief without removing the underlying pressures on public finances. The tax burden therefore remains an important part of the longer-term picture.
For many households, the question is not simply whether they receive a payment or a tax reduction. It is whether their disposable income is growing faster than the costs they face.
What the OBR says about living standards
The Office for Budget Responsibility provides a more independent way of looking beyond the Chancellor's presentation.
Its October Economic and Fiscal Outlook forecasts that real household disposable income per person will fall by 0.6 per cent in the financial year 2026–27.
That is an important qualification to the Government's claims about providing breathing space.
The OBR expects inflation to peak at 3.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2027 before returning to the Bank of England's 2 per cent target in the third quarter of 2028.
Economic growth is forecast at 1.2 per cent in 2026, slowing to 1 per cent in 2027.
These are not figures suggesting that households are about to experience a rapid improvement in their living standards.
The Chancellor can point to measures intended to reduce the immediate impact of the international energy shock. The OBR estimates that the Budget's household support will reduce inflation by 0.1 percentage points in 2027.
That is welcome, but it is a relatively modest contribution when set against the broader economic pressures.
The distinction between inflation falling and prices falling is also important. Even when inflation returns to 2 per cent, that means prices are still rising, just more slowly. The substantial increases households have already experienced are not automatically reversed.
Businesses are less convinced
The reaction from the business community provides another perspective.
A snap survey by the Institute of Directors, involving 278 business leaders in the 24 hours following the Budget, found that 53 per cent viewed it negatively and only 19 per cent positively.
That produced a net satisfaction score of minus 35.
There were measures businesses welcomed. Energy cost reductions, lower regulatory costs, the fuel duty freeze and the decision not to increase the headline rates of Corporation Tax, Income Tax, National Insurance or VAT all received positive responses.
But there were significant reservations.
The 3.9 per cent increase in the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage was particularly unpopular among respondents. Nearly six in ten expected it to have a negative impact on their organisation.
This illustrates a difficult balancing act for government.
Increasing wages helps lower-paid workers, but employers must find the money to meet those increases. Smaller businesses in hospitality, retail and other labour-intensive sectors may have limited room to absorb additional costs.
They may respond by increasing prices, reducing recruitment, cutting hours or accepting lower profit margins.
There is no guarantee that every employer will react in the same way, but the concern is genuine.
A separate YouGov survey conducted before the Budget found that 52 per cent of business decision-makers expected the Budget to leave businesses worse off, against only 15 per cent expecting an improvement.
The subsequent Institute of Directors survey suggests that the Chancellor has not yet overcome those concerns.
IoD+1
Help is welcome, but is it enough?
Another interesting piece of evidence comes from a rapid-response exercise conducted by Survation for 38 Degrees on Budget day.
It involved 706 adults answering open questions about the announcements.
This was not a representative opinion poll, and its percentages should not be treated as estimates of the views of the entire UK population. Nevertheless, the responses provide useful insight into what people were saying immediately after hearing the Budget.
Only 12 per cent said the Budget gave them what they had wanted.
Sixty-eight per cent said the Government was not moving quickly enough to tackle rising prices. Twenty-seven per cent raised concerns that the cost-of-living measures were too small to make a difference, while 18 per cent said nothing announced would help them.
The most common complaint was not necessarily opposition to the individual measures. It was that the help was too limited or would arrive too late.
That is an important distinction.
People are not necessarily rejecting assistance. They are questioning whether it is sufficient to deal with the financial pressures they face.
Survation
[/b]The Scottish dimension[/b]
These issues have particular significance in Scotland, especially in rural communities such as Caithness and Sutherland.
Households in remote areas often have fewer opportunities to reduce their transport costs. Many depend on cars, face longer journeys for shopping and medical appointments, and may have limited access to public transport.
A fuel duty freeze is therefore welcome, but it does not remove the additional costs associated with rural living.
Energy is another important consideration. Some households rely on heating oil rather than mains gas. They may benefit from wider measures to reduce electricity costs, but the removal of gas standing charges will offer them little or nothing directly.
Small businesses face similar challenges. Shops, hospitality businesses, garages, tradespeople and local service providers must contend with transport, heating, staffing and supply costs.
The increase in the National Living Wage may help employees, but businesses operating on narrow margins will need to find the money somewhere.
For Scotland, there is also the question of how UK-wide announcements interact with devolved taxation and spending decisions. Not every Budget measure will operate in precisely the same way north and south of the border.
The bigger question: who is actually better off?
It is tempting to judge a Budget by adding together the announced benefits and presenting them as money returned to households.
But that is only half the calculation.
A proper assessment needs to consider:
- Direct payments and reductions in household bills.
- Changes to income tax and other taxes.
- The continuing impact of frozen tax thresholds.
- Inflation and the rising cost of essential goods.
- Wage increases and their effect on employment and prices.
- The longer-term outlook for jobs, investment and economic growth.
Different households will experience the Budget differently.
A low-paid employee may benefit from the minimum wage increase. Someone with substantial savings may face additional tax. A pensioner with modest income may welcome energy assistance but still find that inflation erodes the value of their pension. A small business owner may appreciate lower energy costs but struggle with higher staffing expenses.
There is no single answer that applies to everyone.
The Resolution Foundation has also warned that household incomes may not recover from the losses experienced over the previous two years until around mid-2029. Its assessment highlights the difficult position facing families even after the latest support measures.
Resolution Foundation
A political success is not necessarily an economic success
The early polling suggests that the Chancellor has secured a more favourable public reaction than the previous Budget.
That matters politically, but it should not be confused with an improvement in living standards.
The most revealing finding is that 45 per cent regard the Budget as fair, yet 56 per cent believe it will make no real difference to their family's finances.
That tells us something about the public mood.
People may appreciate individual measures, recognise that the Government faces difficult choices and accept that money is limited. But they are still waiting to see a meaningful improvement in their everyday circumstances.
The business community is also looking for more than a collection of individual announcements. It wants confidence, investment, predictable taxation and an environment in which companies can expand and employ more people.
The Government has offered some immediate assistance, but the underlying problems of weak growth, high living costs, public debt and taxation remain.
Perhaps the fairest conclusion is that the Budget has provided some welcome relief without yet providing convincing evidence of a lasting improvement in household prosperity.
Giving with one hand and taking with the other may be an oversimplification, because some measures genuinely help people and some tax changes affect relatively small groups.
But for millions of households, the important calculation is not what the Chancellor announces. It is what remains in their pockets after everything has been paid.
And that is a calculation which will take considerably longer than Budget day to settle.
How have Britons reacted to the 2026 Budget?
Budget balancing act leaves families braced for tough winter and four-year living standards downturn