We will be hammered in the budget, says 64-year-old

Andy Watson is not optimistic about the outcome of the budget

A man in his sixties with disabilities says he feels he will "get hammered" whatever happens in the Budget announcement on 26 November.

Andy Watson, 64, lives in Stotfold, Bedfordshire, and has serious mobility problems.

He has also had a liver transplant and two types of cancer.

He says he was hoping that some of the rumours about increased taxes in the budget do not turn out to be true.

When sitting with a cigarette in his mouth in the room where he spends most of his life, Andy Watson does not look like a survivor.

But somehow, he says, he is still "living and breathing".

After receiving a lung transplant 22 years ago, he was diagnosed with lung cancer eight years ago.

Bowel cancer followed in 2022, along with back problems.

"My spine is poking into the spinal cord," he said, "so walking is very difficult, very very painful.

"I've been receiving injections in the spine for the last few years, but you're only allowed so many of them and they stopped."

Mr Watson finds it difficult to get out and about without his scooter

Mr Watson says he is on a waiting list for hospital treatment, but in the meantime his mobility is "lousy" so he is "stuck in the house" apart from visits to a nearby coffee shop.

"Whatever happens in the budget," he said, "we know we're going to get hammered.

"I'm just hoping [the government] are going to breach their manifesto and there's a call to arms by everybody for them to have another election.

"It's gone beyond the point of saying 'yeah, they've just got in, they've got to find their feet'."

Suffering financially

Mr Watson believes the economy has only got worse over the past 18 months and the government is "just investing more and more money on immigrants".

He believes paying £49.18 a week to asylum seekers has resulted in the government being forced to consider new unpopular charges in the budget.

He also spoke against the government housing migrants in hotels as the accommodation was "still a hotel, still a nice little holiday joint".

Research conducted by the University of Hertfordshire and the Helen Bamber Foundation concluded that while the media and politicians "depict people seeking asylum as living in luxury... the reality could not be more different."

The government said it would close every single asylum hotel, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds.

Mr Watson says pensioners are suffering financially despite "contributing to the country all these years - but Mr Starmer don't think about that, it's a joke".

The state pension is currently £230.25 per week while the allowance for an asylum seeker goes down to £9.95 per week if their accommodation supplies meals.

Mr Watson said his own income, which is made up of a Personal Independence Payment, Employment and Support Allowance and a mobility allowance, was "a couple of hundred pounds a week to live on [and I] contribute towards running a house, buying food".

Chancellor Rachel Reeves could change tax rates in the budget on 26 November

Mr Watson said: "[The government is] on about taxing your mileage.

"Scrap the road tax - just put it on the petrol [so] we're all paying equal."

A spokesperson for the Treasury said Vehicle Excise Duty was forecast to raise approximately £9.1bn in the current financial year, which would go towards funding public services.

Mr Watson would like some measures in the budget to give him a little more income: "I'm very lucky, my wife has retired, so she has a pension.

"She pays the majority of the bills and the running costs, other than that it's very, very tight.

"It would be lovely to be off on nice holidays and all the rest, but you can't do it."

He said he enjoyed a "couple of little mini-breaks a year" with his wife Liz in the UK.

Mr Watson owned a mobility shop in Letchworth until his health forced him to give up

Before his health forced him to give up his job eight years ago, Mr Watson was running a shop selling mobility aids.

"We miss it," he says, "we miss the banter - it was lovely to help people."

Although he has left the world of business behind, he has a keen interest in what owners of small businesses are going through.

At the moment, bosses have to register for VAT if their turnover over 12 months is greater than £90,000.

The think tank, The Resolution Foundation, has suggested the government drops the threshold to just £30,000 to increase competition, but Mr Watson is not impressed.

"What a joke," he said, "I know a few shopkeepers, they're closing earlier now, because they are frightened to death of going over and into the VAT."