‘A mixed bag’: people of Port Talbot give the budget a cautious welcome
W hite clouds billow from the steelworks in Port Talbot as shoppers traipse down from the station into a town nestled between the rocky hills of south Wales, the M4 motorway and the charcoal blue of Swansea bay.
If the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, had a place in mind when drafting his budget, Port Talbot could have been it. The steelmaking town at the mouth of the River Afan has among the highest rates of workforce inactivity in the UK attributed to health issues, disability, or caring responsibilities. While locals here reckon Hunt’s budget will help, they argue the government could have gone further.
“Nobody can argue with extending the energy support. We knew that was coming,” says Margaret Lake, the chair of Neath Port Talbot Carers Service, which offers help and advice for about 2,000 people in the area.
“But there could have been a lot more though. From what I can see social care hasn’t been mentioned once. And that’s a big issue in the valley communities, where people are waiting for packages of social care. And of course unpaid carers fall into that category.”
As well as a larger share of people limited by ill health, the local authority of Neath Port Talbot has the highest rate in England and Wales for people providing at least 20 hours of unpaid care each week.
Hunt’s budget proposal to expand free childcare for one- and two-year-olds could help in England. As a devolved responsibility, the Welsh government could use its budget funding settlement to follow suit. However, Lake warns that wider investment in public services is required to help those caring for children with disabilities or elderly relatives. With lengthy hospital waiting times and cuts to social care provision, unpaid carers are left to pick up the
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