VAT off electricity on Monday, a £2 bus fare on Wednesday, a fifth off the pub's rates on Thursday. The new government's first week was a run of price cuts - and not one of them arrived with a bill attached. The relief has a date. The argument about who pays has been postponed.
Crossbencher · 28 July 2026
The new government's first week rhymed. On Monday, VAT came off household electricity bills, effective October. On Wednesday, bus fares across England were capped at £2 from January. On Thursday, business rates for pubs, clubs and music venues were cut by a fifth. Each announcement landed on a bill people actually pay, which is why each one led the news. What never arrived was the invoice. Nobody stood at a podium and said what the week cost, or who would be paying for it.
The funding lines are where the week gets interesting. The bus cap is reported to be paid for out of the overseas aid budget - a choice the aid charities said, within hours, would land on the world's poorest. The VAT cut was costed by The Sun at £850 million and put down to the scrapping of the digital ID scheme. The rates cut is promised now, with the funding to be set out later in the year. Even the price of the bus policy wouldn't hold still for a week: £454 million in one paper, £500 million in another, "fully funded" from the transport secretary, "hasn't been worked out yet" from a minister on live television. Those two claims were made about the same policy in the same news cycle.
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