London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

'Young people need help now': Britons want more from 2021 budget

'Young people need help now': Britons want more from 2021 budget

A furloughed bar manager, a self-employed magician and a retired dancer tell us how Covid has affected their lives

Wednesday’s budget extended measures brought into to help people struggling during the Covid crisis, and introduced the idea of a green savings bond to help rebuild the economy. We asked people what they thought about Rishi Sunak’s plans.

Furloughed worker: ‘The amount offered for hospitality wouldn’t even touch the sides’


Cumbria has some of the highest rates of furloughed workers in the country, and even with the September extension announced in the budget, many businesses will still declare bankruptcy.

Katharine Simmons, 26, manages a bar in Carlisle. She has been on furlough but the owners have made a decision to close for good. Simmons is “absolutely devastated”.

Situated in an arcade, the pub cannot open until June as there’s not the space for outdoor seating.

“The pub is more than £50,000 in debt, so turnover just wouldn’t be high enough to cover costs if we opened at half-capacity.” Simmons is anxious about her and her staffs’ future. They’ve been on furlough since March and if the company liquidates, which is looking likely, the grant will come to an end.

“Many young people have already started to leave the city. There’s nothing here so they leave.”

She says: “The amount that is being offered in the budget for hospitality wouldn’t even touch the sides.”

But she does have a plan for the future: “It may be a good time to invest in my community interest company for mental health, full-time, after the training course grants were announced. It’s very much an opportunity to dive in at the deep end and just go for it.”
Lucy Mansfield

Self-employed worker: ‘£15 of school meals vouchers are not enough for my teenage son’
Magician Eddie Young with his son, Josh, and his wife, Debbie.


When Boris Johnson announced the first national lockdown last March, the magician Eddie Young lost all business. The 47-year-old from Burton upon Trent had to fork out almost £2,500 in refunds practically overnight and was left with no source of income to support himself, his wife and their 13-year-old son.

He applied for the government’s SEISS grant but because the calculation was based on tax returns for the years when he was growing the business and making very little profit, he received only £250 for three months. A typical annual profit would be closer to £20,000, he says. He mothballed the business and began receiving universal credit in July, as well as taking out a £10,000 bank loan. The only other household income is his wife’s – she has multiple sclerosis and is long-term unemployed, receiving £400 worth of employment and support allowance.

Struggling to survive on the financial help available, he took a job in IT in January. The stress of leaving his profession has led to problems with depression and although the chancellor has pledged £410m to support the arts sector, freelance entertainers won’t be able to access it.

Having to homeschool his son has exacerbated his mental ill-health and school closures have put further strain on their already stretched finances. He says: “We get £15 a week in school meals vouchers but he’s a teenager, so he eats us out of house and home. It’s only £3 a meal and it doesn’t go far.”

Young is disappointed there was no mention in the budget about offering free school meals over the holidays – it would be a lifeline for struggling families such as his, he says.

Although not highlighted in the chancellor’s speech, the extra £400m in funding for schools to run catchup summer schools, along with £300m announced for catchup projects in January, is welcomed by Young. But because it will be up to schools to decide how and if they run summer schools, how long they will be, and which pupils will be invited to attend, he is worried his son will miss out.

He says: “Summer schools will help but it’s got to be done in a structured way and made available to everybody, not just those children which the school considers need it most.”
Matthew Jenkin

Retired dancer: ‘A universal basic income will help people stay out of poverty’
Retired ballet dancer Alexandra Pickford from Bristol.


Alexandra Pickford was hoping the chancellor would announce measures to help young people and benefit the environment.

Pickford, 72 – who had her Covid-19 jab in November as part of the Oxford trial – says. “us older people have been protected by the nation and the government” in terms of lockdown measures and priority for vaccination, adding: “Young people have got to be given help now. It was difficult even before all this happened for them to be able to get on to the property ladder and so on.”

Pickford, who lives in Bristol, was a professional ballet dancer until she was 40 and then worked in the fitness industry before retiring at 60. In terms of her retirement income, she says: “It’s not much but I don’t need much.” Pickford buys a lot of what she needs in charity shops.

However, a survey of over-50s carried out by the insurer SunLife found that the pandemic had caused 40% to worry about the future and 34% to worry specifically about their finances. It also found that 27% of people over 50 had been left worse off as a result of the coronavirus crisis, by £445 a month on average.

Pickford doesn’t have children and says: “I do have a little bit of money set aside because I’ve been able to save. I’ve always scrimped and saved even though I haven’t earned an enormous amount.”

A universal basic income for all citizens is something that has been proposed a number of times over the years and Pickford is a supporter. “I feel very strongly that the UBI will help people stay out of poverty and with no stigma of benefits,” she says.

She has solar panels and does not own a car, and says, “in theory”, she is interested in the green retail savings bonds that were announced. These will be launched by NS&I in the summer.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×