It was never going to be memorable or a giveaway budget. Chancellor Phillip Hammond – nicknamed ‘Spreadsheet Phil’ because of his steady, meticulous and not-too-exciting approach to figures – was never going to magic anything out of his red box.

And much of what he did produce had been widely forecast.

Jean Scott-Smith, of Shap, described the Budget as “a bit nowty”.

“There is nothing to it really. It has not got anything either way.

“This thing about free school transport for children who get free school meals, there should be free transport for all children.

“It is hard to find for families and past-16 it is a burden, I know it is.”

Even the Chancellor’s announcement of £2 billion for social care provisions and an extra £100 million to put GPs in A&E departments by next winter didn’t impress her.


Jean Scott-Smith She said: “I think we have slipped so far behind with our funding for the NHS and social care that the extra money promised for them that these amounts are not going to make a vast difference very quickly.

“It should have been a lot more if you want the NHS funding properly, or social care to be adequate. These amounts are not going to pull them up quickly enough.”

Ian Blenkinsopp believes the Chancellor should have said more about Brexit and its implications for the country.

And he believes the scheme to employ GPs to help out under pressure A&E departments will not work.

“There are not enough GPs in Cumbria as it is. Where will they come from? Lots of GPs are leaving the country and after Brexit it will be more difficult to recruit them from abroad.”

The father of three, who has undergone a kidney transplant, added: “I would like to see people going into these hospitals and taking out at least one layer of management. You see people day in day out walking round with clip boards doing nothing.

“The £2bn will not necessarily ease things on the NHS. We have just heard that cottage hospitals in Cumbria will lose their in-patient beds, a lot of those people will have to go into hospital for care.”

Jean, 69, who is married to Mike, 71, said: “The increasing elderly population is going to be a headache for decades to come.

“A lot of people have not made provision for elderly care because there has always been help there.

“People of my generation have always had help. We benefited from the NHS.

“It has always been there and we have both had superb care from the NHS all our lives.

“It would be a shame for this to slide and for everyone to have private provision again.”

Mr Blenkinsopp, of Durranhill, near Carlisle, added: “I wish they would get on with Brexit, they are just kicking that can down the road.”


Ian Blenkinsopp And he is not impressed by the extra money that will be spent on some parts of education.

“They have given lots of money to free schools, but Cumbria is losing lots of teachers, lots of teachers.

“It just seems to be one little circle going round and round and health and education are the ones easiest to hit.

“It does not matter which party is in control, it is always the working man who gets hit.

“They have increased the tax on the self-employed, but why have they not gone after Boots, Amazon or Costa who don’t pay the taxes they should.

“I like that he lifted the personal tax threshold, but when they go on about the national average wage of £26,000 there are not many of us up here on that.

“It seems that wages are going down, relatively. In a recent report, out of the whole of Europe, our working man’s wages crashed the same amount as those in Greece and everyone else in Europe saw theirs going up.”


Chris Joyce Chimney sweep Chris Joyce reckons the rise in the national insurance rates for self-employed people will only succeed in upsetting a lot of natural Conservative voters.

Chris, who lives in Westnewton, said: “Since the year 2000 the amount of self-employed workers has grown by 45 per cent so the Chancellor is going to succeed in annoying a lot of people and raise not very much revenue.

“Self-employed people are probably most likely to vote Conservative because they get paid through their own endeavour.”