FY ’26 Budget to Pass Japan Lower House Fri. at Earliest

Tokyo, March 13 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese government’s fiscal 2026 budget bill is expected to clear the House of Representatives as early as Friday night, with support mainly from the ruling camp led by the Liberal Democratic Party. Following the passage in the lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, the budget proposal for the year starting April will then be sent to the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, where the LDP and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, lack a majority. With Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi sticking to a policy of getting the Diet to pass the budget before the end of fiscal 2025 on March 31, the ruling bloc is set to end Lower House deliberations on the budget much earlier than usual. At a plenary meeting on Friday afternoon, the Lower House rejected a motion submitted by four opposition parties on Thursday to dismiss the LDP’s Tetsushi Sakamoto as chairman of the chamber’s Budget Committee, in protest at his committee management, by a majority vote backed by the ruling parties. Following the plenary meeting, the committee is slated to hold a closing question-and-answer session attended by Takaichi and all members of her cabinet. After it clears the Lower House by a majority vote with backing chiefly from the ruling parties at a plenary meeting, the budget bill will then be sent to the Upper House. General-account spending in the budget bill is set at 122,309.2 billion yen, a record high, reflecting the proactive yet responsible fiscal policy advocated by Takaichi. Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Party for the People on Friday decided to oppose the budget bill. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and other opposition parties in the Upper House warn that they will refuse deliberations on the budget bill if the ruling camp railroads it through the Lower House. Still, the ruling parties aim to start budget talks at the Upper House Budget Committee on Monday. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]