The Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate for East Wiltshire, David Kinnaird, has branded the Spring Budget as “desperate, deceptive stuff.”

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt revealed the last scheduled Budget before the next general election on Wednesday, March 6, which included a cut to workers' National Insurance by another 2p, which he says is worth £450 a year for the average worker.

David Kinnaird, the Lib Dem set to challenge Conservative MP Danny Kruger for the new East Wiltshire seat, claims this won’t help people enough.

He said: "Today's budget headline pretends to cut tax.  

“But the tax bill for most continues to rise because there are no change to the tax thresholds.”

He added: “This is set against a backdrop of a country that has simply stopped working for its citizens.

“People want the surgery they have been waiting years for, often in pain, to actually happen.  

“They want to be able to see a GP inside 3 weeks.  

“They want courts to be able to dispense justice in less than a year.  

“They want roads without huge potholes, trains that are on time and cheaper.  

“They don’t want pretend tax cuts and nothing getting better.

“This Budget will not touch the sides for people, will not invest in our services and will not provide the growth we desperately need.

“The only thing we need from Mr Sunak that he can actually deliver and that will immediately help us, is a General Election. Now."

Meanwhile, Mr Kruger, spoke in the House of Commons on Thursday, March 7, and praised the new measures announced in the Budget.

He said: “I particularly welcome the extension to the household support fund which I have been calling for on behalf of Wiltshire Council, which I want to pay tribute to for the really good work they do in supporting households in need.”

However, he noted there remained “profound, powerful, structural problems” in the model of the economy, which he described as a “cross-party responsibility.”

Mr Kruger said this model had been built on “cheap money”, “cheap labour” and “cheap imports.”

He added: “My own plea, on behalf of Wiltshire, and indeed of the whole country, which is what I regret more than anything in the Budget, is the slow uplift - the frankly insignificant uplift - that we’ve seen in defence mending.”

He concluded that it would a “great thing” for Wiltshire and the nation to see more significant investments in the army.