Autumn Budget brings some welcome support but key areas still require urgent action

Mike Clancy, Prospect General Secretary, gives his reaction to yesterday’s Budget, which he acknowledges was always going to be difficult and, as he writes in his latest blog here, while there are some welcome measures, urgent challenges also remain.

Prospect members on strike outside the V&A in South Kensington, London, in late September 2026

This week the Chancellor unveiled his Autumn Budget, which set out the Government’s tax and spending plans for the year ahead. This was always going to be a difficult task given the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and its subsequent impact on energy prices and inflation.

In this context, we welcome the steps to ease the cost of living pressures that our members and working people across the country are facing, funded by increasing taxes on the big banks. It is also positive to see these targeted support measures be accompanied by the Government’s longer-term vision for a cheaper, cleaner energy system.

At Prospect, we believe the Government should go further on this in the coming months, cutting the link between volatile gas prices and consumer electricity bills by building out new renewables and nuclear infrastructure, solving the grid workforce crisis, and taking direct control of gas generation and battery rollout in order to lower prices for consumers. Our recent policy paper, Power for the People, set out our thinking on how to reduce bills in the long term.

In addition, we welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to fully funding the Defence Investment Plan and to meeting the 3% defence spending target in 2030. This commitment must be honoured, and the focus must now urgently turn to ensuring defence spending means investment going into creating good, unionised jobs in Britain that can support families and local communities.

However, there are several areas affecting Prospect members where we have not seen the urgent action needed.
For example on UK science capability, it is incredibly disappointing that no action was taken to avert the impending cuts to vital public sector science budgets. These short-sighted cuts will cause irreparable damage to the UK’s standing as a science nation and must be rethought. Prospect will continue our campaign to reverse these cuts.

On regulation, while we welcome the Government finally recognising that good regulation is good for the economy, we will continue to press the overwhelming evidence that the underfunding of our regulators is behind so many of our problems in regulation. Prospect will also be seeking early engagement with the new Better Regulation Executive.

Our members working in public services will be concerned at the insistence in the Budget that AI deployment will result in huge savings within the public sector, alongside doubling down on arbitrary targets for savings to civil service budgets that risk damaging service delivery and efficiency.

Prospect will be making the case on these issues and others to government, and highlighting their impact on members across our union, including ahead of the Spending Review expected next Spring.
This includes standing up for our freelance members, especially those in the Bectu sector. The introduction of paternity allowance for self-employed dads, following campaigns from Bectu and others, is a win for some of our members.

However, we are deeply concerned by the Chancellor’s announcement that he will be going ahead with tax reforms that could leave self-employed workers paying more tax upfront at a time when many are already struggling with insecure work and cashflow pressures. This is more evidence that government simply doesn’t understand the reality of the work our members do in the creative industries.

Ultimately, this Budget has provided some necessary support for many members, but also raised significant challenges arising from the turbulent global situation. In this context, it is good news that the Prime Minister has committed to reopening the debate on Brexit and the UK’s EU membership. Closer alignment with the EU, including exploring options like rejoining, will provide a vital economic boost in an increasingly volatile world, which should in turn benefit our members and working people across the country through greater investment and public spending.