Well we've had the budget, below are a summary of the key changes along with my comments on how I think it will change Scunthorpe. I'd be really interested to see if you agree with me or not, and if you're not from Scunthorpe I'd also really appreciate it if you could drop us a few comments or even pen an article like this one explaining how it will affect where you live. - Public Sector Pay freeze for 2 years - Reduction in Housing Benefit of �1.8 Billion over 5 years - Reduction in Corporation Tax by 1 percent per year over the next 4 years - Small companies tax rate to be reduced to 20% - Enterprise finance guarantee scheme to be increased - Family element of child tax credit withdrawn at 40 instead of 50k - Child benefit frozen for 3 years - new assessments on disability living allowance - Tax cuts for small businesses - Planned relief for video games industry cancelled - Annual investment allowance for R&D reduced to 25k - from Jan 2011 a bank levy to be introduced creating 2Billion income per year - Green investment bank to be created. - Abolished telephone tax for broadband. - VAT @ 20% From January - Personal allowance increased by �1,000 giving basic rate payers �175 per year extra - Capital Gains tax increased to 28%, �5M allowance for entrepreneurs. How does this affect Scunthorpe? VAT Increases The increase in VAT to 20% is not only a breach of the Liberal Democrats election promises, its a tax hike which affects every one. Tax should be collected on an ability to pay, not on a necessity to live. People on a lower income will be unfairly paying a greater proportion of their income than those who are better off. This is going to hit people in Scunthorpe on lower incomes and will have an impact on the amount of footfall in the town centre. Benefit Reductions A Range of benefit reductions are to be introduced, including a reduction in housing benefits and changes will be made to how assessments made for disability which will make it harder for those in need to make claims. According to Nick Robinson the BBC's political commentator there are �11bn welfare cuts will affect every one in receipt of benefits. Benefits don't just affect those who are out of work, they also affect those who can't work due to illness and add additional incomes to those on low salaries. The �1,000 per year increase in personal allowance will net workers on basic tax an extra �175 per year. In a lot of cases this will be insignificant in comparison to the housing benefits and tax credits which a lot of low paid workers in the town are reliant on. Public Spending Pay Freeze The public sector is one of the largest employers in the Scunthorpe area. The government has announced not just a pay freeze for the next two years, but also a 25% reduction in spending. Any one working for local hospitals, school, the local authority, police, fire and ambulance are going to have their pay essentially go down in line with inflation over the next two years, while they will start paying extra VAT just like all of us. Its also argued that as you cut back on the public sector then the private sector which provides goods and services to the public sector will also see a reduction in income. This is very true and will affect local contractors such as my self who provide IT support services to several LGA Funded organisations. So what the net affect In Scunthorpe we have very few new businesses opening, so they will not be able to gain from the NI Incentives. Similarly we have few R&D related companies or private entrepreneur's which will benefit from the tax handouts being given to them, so there's little positive knock on benefit to the Scunthorpe Economy. Sadly I think we are in for a tough time in Scunthorpe with the reliance of a lot of people on housing benefit, that and the large number of local authority related jobs combined with the increase in VAT will lead to people spending less in the local economy and a general down turn. Many have warned of a double dip recession, I don't think this will happen nationally but I do think it could happen in disadvantaged towns like Scunthorpe all around the North of England. Nic Dakin - Local MP's view I recevied the following comments via email from Nic Dakin the Scunthorpe MP this morning, which I'm pleased to share with readers here: In terms of my thoughts - which I'm happy for you to quote from - here's a brief summary: It is too early to tell what the impact of the budget on the Scunthorpe area will be - but I fear the worst. The cuts in spending announced by the Chancellor are some of the biggest ever in peacetime and don't have to be made as quickly or as savagely as the Coalition Government are arguing. Official figures released this week show that the measures taken by the outgoing Labour government were working and that both borrowing and unemployment are significantly down on what had been predicted. So the measures announced in the budget take a real and unnecessary risk with the economy. The worry is that spending in the economy will fall as people lose their jobs in the public sector and pay freezes hit. The VAT rise will further reduce demand. All this is likely to mean there will be a negative effect on the private sector as well. It is galling that the Liberals accused the Tories in the election of lying about their intentions to increase VAT - a charge that David Cameron and George Osbourne both vehemntly denied - yet now the Liberals support an increase in a tax that will hit pensioners and the poorest people in society hardest. So I fear we are in for difficult times locally but hope that my fears prove to be unjustified. Other's comments Away from Scunthorpe, Caroline Lucas the UK's 1st ever green MP said "The Budget is neither "unavoidable" nor "fair". In my opinion it's a hugely wasted opportunity to make the economy fairer and greener. I hope to speak on this in debate tomorrow." Nick Clegg has commented on his blogg "These measures will ensure that the burden of deficit reduction is shared fairly across society". Do you agree? Other Blogs on this subject

Mick Grant Labour Councillor for Ashby Ward blogs regularily, read his thoughts on the Budget.

If you know of any other local scunthorpe blogs covering the story then please let us know about them and we'll include links here