People's Budget

1909 and 1910 (1909 and 1910) United Kingdom budget

Finance (1909–10) Act 1910
David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill
Presented	29 April 1909
Passed	29 April 1910
Parliament	28th and 29th
Party	Liberal Party
Chancellor	David Lloyd George
Website	Hansard
‹ 1908 1911›

Finance (1909–10) Act 1910
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to grant certain Duties of Customs and Inland Revenue (including Excise), to alter other Duties, and to amend the Law relating to Customs and Inland Revenue (including Excise), and to make other financial provisions.
Citation	10 Edw. 7. & 1 Geo. 5. c. 8
Dates
Royal assent	29 April 1910
Text of statute as originally enacted
Text of the Finance (1909–10) Act 1910 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

The 1909/1910 People's Budget was a proposal of the Liberal government that introduced unprecedented taxes on the lands and incomes of Britain's wealthy to fund new social welfare programmes. It passed the House of Commons in 1909 but was blocked by the House of Lords for a year and became law in April 1910.

It was championed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, and his young ally Winston Churchill, who was then President of the Board of Trade and a fellow Liberal; called the "Terrible Twins" by certain Conservative contemporaries.^[1]

William Manchester, one of Churchill's biographers, called the People's Budget a "revolutionary concept" because it was the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth equally amongst the British population.^[2] It was a key issue of contention between the Liberal government and the Conservative-dominated House of Lords, leading to two general elections in 1910 and the enactment of the Parliament Act 1911.