Below follows Together Gibraltar’s response to this year’s Budget:

Together Gibraltar pans the GSLP government’s budget as one which abandons socialist principles and leaves behind the weakest in society while providing more tax cuts for the wealthy. 

This year’s budget provides bare minimum increases for working class Gibraltarians (or even less, in the case of pensioners), and tax cuts for wealthy parents to send their children to private schools.

In addition, it lacks transparency. Nearly a billion pounds is going through government-owned companies, eroding faith in the government, and that the spending is all above board. There isn’t enough accountability, resulting in a debate that Nick Calamaro, Together Gibraltar’s secretary characterised as a “He-said, he-said between government and a toothless opposition.”  

Marlene Hassan-Nahon recently highlighted in her budget speech, that the opposition continues to demonise taxation and borrowing, forcing the government to feel that obfuscation is their only answer. Gibraltar needs an honest conversation about how the government funds our services so we can begin to reduce the disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

While public sector workers have been offered a one-time bonus, it is insufficient to account for workers’ salary depreciation after four years with no pay rise. 

The picture is even worse for Gibraltar’s private sector workers. We have to ask ourselves serious questions about why a jurisdiction as supposedly thriving as Gibraltar, cannot create a fair deal for the workers who keep it going. Our economy is clearly not working for thousands of Gibraltarians, struggling to make ends meet. 

The minimum wage increase is a welcome change but still lags far behind even the UK. The government needs to take a long, hard look about what the ‘economic growth’ touted by the government is doing for workers. The much-touted ‘economic growth’ doesn’t appear to be benefiting workers. Gibraltar desperately needs to invest back into our public services and move towards a model that creates high quality, well paying jobs.

The budget shows no attempt to shift Gibraltar from the unsustainable, extractive economy it has become. Visitors and locals alike speak about Gibraltar in terms of grime, smell, eyesores and broken infrastructure. This grime combined with a lack of attention to Gibraltar’s tourist product is putting a pillar of our economy at serious risk. Tourist numbers are still down from before the pandemic (unlike many other tourist hubs).Government needs a strategy and to work with the private sector to push for a modern tourist product that creates amazing multi-day stays and experiences and meaningful jobs for locals.

Pensioners have also been left in the cold by this budget which sees a real-terms decrease in occupational pensions and does not fill the gaps in the system. This budget won’t help the men who cannot receive community care or women who have been divorced or widowed and left with a meagre pension that isn’t even getting them to the end of the month.

Together Gibraltar demands a fairer deal. One which recognises growing divides in our community and puts working class Gibraltarians front-and-centre. 

A fairer deal on tax where the wealthy, who get so much from Gibraltar, pay back their fair share. A deal where we support local businesses and people who live in Gibraltar, not just those who ‘invest’ in it. A deal where we build skills and infrastructure not luxury houses. If you believe in this deal, there’s still a party for you.