Category Archives: Money

Autumn statement: Jeremy Hunt looks to cut UK taxes and ‘turbo-charge growth’

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Amid less gloomy OBR forecasts the chancellor is expected to take first steps towards cutting personal taxes

Jeremy Hunt will announce 110 measures to boost Britain’s stagnant economy and bow to demands from anxious Tory MPs for tax cuts when he delivers his second autumn statement on Wednesday.

In one of the last set-piece economic events before the general election, the chancellor will pledge to “turbo charge” growth while taking the first steps to cut personal taxes after recent sharp increases.

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UK needs more lab space if it wants to be science superpower, ministers told

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Leading property firms also call for more tax breaks and improved transport links to hubs ahead of autumn statement

The UK needs to build more laboratory space, improve transport links and offer more tax breaks to achieve Rishi Sunak’s ambition of becoming a science superpower, two leading property firms have argued ahead of the autumn statement.

Demand for laboratories in the UK is growing fast, with lab vacancy rates of just 1% in Cambridge and London, and 7% in Oxford, according to a report by British Land, one of Britain’s biggest property developers, and the upmarket estate agency and advisory firm Savills.

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Jeremy Hunt faces red wall revolt if he delivers ‘a budget for the rich’

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The chancellor’s potential inheritance tax cut in Wednesday’s budget would aid millionaires amid a cost of living crisis

Jeremy Hunt faces a backlash from “red wall” Tory MPs if he uses a fiscal windfall of up to £20bn to deliver tax cuts for the rich rather than to help ordinary families with the cost of living, the Observer has been told.

The chancellor and Rishi Sunak are this weekend finalising an autumn statement on Wednesday that could include a major reduction in inheritance tax – four-fifths of which would benefit those with more than £1m at their death, according to a new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Each person with more than £1m would receive an average tax cut of £180,000, the IFS states.

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UK savers urged to act quickly for best returns as rates drop

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NS&I, Shawbrook and Tandem among providers to make reductions amid flurry of such moves

Savers have been urged to act quickly if they want to get the best returns on their money after a flurry of interest rate cuts on top-paying accounts.

This week NS&I reduced the rate it offers on its three-year green bonds from 5.7% to 3.95%, while Shawbrook, Tandem and Ford Money were among other providers making cuts.

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Average UK house sale price suffers first annual fall for 11 years

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ONS says average price dropped 0.1% year on year in September, with those in London decreasing 1.1%

The average price of a home in the UK dropped by 0.1% in the year to September, official figures show – the first annual fall for more than a decade.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, which are based on completed sales, have shown annual price inflation slowing since July 2022, when the headline rate stood at 13.8%.

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Millions of UK households forced to unplug fridge to cope with rising bills

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Families resorting to ‘desperate measures’ and struggling with ‘frightening’ level of hardship amid cost of living crisis

About 2m UK households have been forced to turn off their fridge or freezer to save money as they continue to struggle with what poverty campaigners called a “frightening” level of hardship.

Nearly half of those households said that since May they had to disconnect their fridge or freezer for the first time, a sign the cost of living crisis was still hurting low-income families, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) charity.

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Energy efficiency scheme for cold homes going at a glacial pace, says Labour

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Government’s Energy Company Obligation has managed to upgrade only 65,000 homes since April 2022, figures show

Labour has attacked the Conservatives over the speed of government efforts to upgrade Britain’s draughty housing stock, as analysis showed a leading household energy efficiency initiative was proceeding at what the party called a “glacial pace”.

Just 65,000 homes have been upgraded under the government’s Energy Company Obligation (Eco) scheme since it was relaunched in April last year, according to analysis of statistics released by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).

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UK housing market is past its ‘peak pain’, declares Savills

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Upmarket estate agent says prices will start to bottom out in 2024 as interest rates fall and will return to growth in 2025

Britain’s housing market is past “peak pain” and prices look likely to bottom out by next summer, according to the estate agency Savills.

The average UK house price is projected to fall by 3% in 2024, after a 4% drop this year, the upmarket estate agent and property advisory firm said in its five-year outlook.

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North Sea oil and gas: what is the new licensing scheme, and will it cut bills?

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Rishi Sunak signalled changes in the king’s speech that create a policy divide with Labour

The government has confirmed its plans to grant new North Sea oil and gas licences every year at the opening of parliament, deepening a political fault line between the Conservatives and Labour, and angering environmental campaigners who argue it undermines efforts to reach net zero. Here, we examine the move.

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UK recession fears grow as shoppers cut spending ‘to save for Christmas’

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Drop in retail sales also because of consumer worries over high energy bills and mortgages, surveys suggest

Fears that the UK is heading for a recession this winter have intensified amid signs Britain’s hard-pressed households are cutting spending as they save for Christmas and higher fuel bills.

Two monthly snapshots of retail activity found shops and online outlets struggling because of consumer budgets being squeezed by dearer mortgages and the UK’s lingering cost of living crisis.

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Staff exodus could hinder expansion of free childcare in England, providers say

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Exclusive: recruitment and retention crisis means only 17% of nurseries say they could offer extra entitlement

A mass exodus of childminders and nursery staff risks scuppering the government’s flagship new funding for parents of young children in England, according to a new coalition of early years providers and campaigners.

More than half of all nursery workers surveyed by the Early Education and Childcare Coalition (EECC) said they were considering or planning on leaving the sector in the next 12 months.

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Motherhood penalty ‘has driven 250,000 women out of jobs’

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Cost and difficulties of balancing work and childcare has led one in 10 to quit, says Fawcett Society

About a quarter of a million mothers with young children have left their jobs because of difficulties with balancing work and childcare, according to a report by an equal rights charity that calls for the end of the “motherhood penalty”.

This juggling act, as well as the punitive cost, has led more than 249,124 working mothers of children aged four or under to leave their employer, according to the Fawcett Society.

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Don’t get caught out by tax on cash interest, UK savers told

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Higher interest rates and move away from cash isas means hundreds of thousands more people may be hit

Higher interest rates look set to land hundreds of thousands more people with an unwelcome tax bill for their savings, a financial advice firm warned this week.

A couple of years ago it was typically only the wealthiest with very big nest eggs who had to pay tax on their savings interest – but now someone with an emergency savings pot of about £8,000 could find themselves falling foul of this little-known tax trap.

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Ulez expansion: 45% fewer ‘dirty’ vehicles now on London’s roads, says TfL

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Sadiq Khan hails ‘huge progress’ as progress report finds more than 95% of vehicles are now compliant

The number of the most polluting vehicles driven in London has fallen by almost half since the capital’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) was expanded, taking almost 80,000 older cars off the roads.

About 77,000, or 45%, fewer non-compliant cars and vans were detected on average a day in September, the first month of operation of the expanded zone – compared with June 2023.

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FCA acts against PayPal and QVC as more Britons turn to buy now, pay later

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Payments group and TV shopping channel change small print after financial regulator steps in

The City regulator has taken action after finding that customers of two leading buy now, pay later providers were “at risk of harm” because of potentially unfair and unclear small print.

The US-based online payments group PayPal and the TV shopping channel QVC have changed the terms of their contracts after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) expressed “concern” over the impact to customers.

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Huge ethnicity pension gap revealed in UK figures

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Shortfalls fuelled by misconceptions and distrust of employers, as well as lack of spare income, figures show

A UK individual from a minority ethnic background typically has a pension pot less than half the size of that belonging to the average white British saver, data reveal.

The research from Legal & General’s investment arm claimed there was a sizeable “ethnicity pensions gap” in the UK that was being fuelled by “misconceptions” around pensions and a “significant distrust of employers”, as well as a lack of spare income.

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UK house prices will not stop falling until 2025, Lloyds predicts

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Britain’s biggest mortgage lender forecasts 5% drop over this year and another 2.4% decline in 2024

UK house prices will continue to slide this year and in 2024 and will not start to recover until 2025, Lloyds Banking Group has forecast.

The lender, which owns Halifax and is Britain’s largest mortgage provider, said that by the end of 2023 UK house prices would have fallen 5% over the course of the year and were likely to decrease by another 2.4% in 2024.

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Vodafone-Three merger could add up to £300 a year to mobile bills, says union

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Tie-up is a ‘terrible deal for Britain’ that also poses risks for national security, Unite claims

Mobile phone bills could rise by as much as £300 a year as a result of the merger of the UK operations of Vodafone and the owner of Three, a trade union has said.

Unite has been a vocal critic of the proposed deal, which would create the UK’s largest mobile operator, and said that it is a “terrible” deal that also poses risks for national security.

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Bad management has prompted one in three UK workers to quit, survey finds

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Study shows widespread concern over quality of managers, with 82% of bosses deemed ‘accidental’, having had no formal training

Almost one-third of UK workers say they’ve quit a job because of a negative workplace culture, according to a new survey that underlines the risks of managers failing to rein in toxic behaviour.

Research carried out by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) pointed to widespread concern about the quality of management, and its impact on workers’ daily lives.

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Liquor store in tiny California town to get $1m for selling billion-dollar lottery ticket

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The Midway Market & Liquor in Frazier Park will get a cut for selling the winning ticket of the second-largest Powerball drawing ever

Janea Herrera, a clerk at a southern California convenience store, first thought it was a joke when she was told that a winning lottery ticket was sold at the store. And it wasn’t just any ticket. It was the winning ticket for the $1.765bn Powerball, which someone had bought at the Midway Market & Liquor in Frazier Park, a small town north of Los Angeles.

“After 30 years of selling those tickets, we need a winner. I’m just happy for my customers,” Nidal Khalil, the store’s co-owner told the LA Times on Thursday. Khalil, 54, co-owns the shop with his brother and said they received congratulatory calls from across the state as well as from Syria, where they are from.

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