Japan Diet Passes FY 2026 Govt Budget

Tokyo, April 7 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s parliament passed the government’s fiscal 2026 budget on Tuesday, marking the first time in 11 years that a regular budget has been enacted after the April 1 start of a fiscal year. The budget was approved by a majority vote at a plenary meeting of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament. It cleared the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, last month. As the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, are four seats short of an Upper House majority, they enlisted the help of the Conservative Party of Japan and unaffiliated lawmakers to push the budget bill over the line. The budget calls for a record general-account spending of 122,309.2 billion yen, in line with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s advocacy of “responsible and proactive” fiscal policy. The expenditures include 39,055.9 billion yen for social security measures and 31,275.8 billion yen for debt-servicing costs, as well as spending to make high school education and elementary school lunches free. Earlier on Tuesday, the Upper House Budget Committee held intensive deliberations and a concluding round of questioning on the budget bill with the prime minister in attendance. As the committee’s vote on the bill resulted in a tie, its chairman, Masahito Fujikawa of the LDP, exercised his casting vote to approve the bill in accordance with the Diet law, after which it was sent to the Upper House plenary meeting. An amendment proposal submitted jointly by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito and another submitted by the Democratic Party for the People were both rejected. Diet deliberations on the budget bill started in late February, about a month later than usual due to a Lower House dissolution in late January and a subsequent general election. As Takaichi, who heads the LDP, was determined to secure the enactment of the budget within fiscal 2025, which ended last month, the ruling parties drastically shortened deliberations in the Lower House by using their dominance in the all-important parliamentary chamber. The ruling camp ultimately gave up on passing the budget by March 31, as the opposition parties, which hold a combined majority in the Upper House, called for in-depth deliberations. Under such circumstances, the Diet enacted a stopgap government budget on March 30. It was intended to cover the period through Saturday, but will lapse and be absorbed into the full budget. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]