Institute for Fiscal Studies says budget ‘looks like the same silly games’ as seen under the Conservatives
Rachel Reeves is now being interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
She is being interviewed by Ed Balls, the former Labour shadow chancellor who is now a TV presenter. He asks her to confirm that workers will end up losing out because of the employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) increase.
Continue reading...Institute for Fiscal Studies says budget allows for rise in public service spending this year and next, but not thereafter
Rachel Reeves could be forced to find more money to fix public services after her budget made a start at reversing the “unrealistic” and irresponsible spending plans of the Conservatives, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.
Britain’s leading experts on the government’s finances said the chancellor’s tax measures on Wednesday had allowed for a substantial short-term increase in public service spending this year and next, but not thereafter.
Continue reading...Former chancellor says ‘increasing borrowing means interest rates would be higher for longer’ as Reeves says it will ‘make space for investment’
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has said that “no one knows” who Robert Jenrick, the Tory leadership contender, is.
Of the two candidates left in the contest, Jenrick is the one who is doing most to appeal to Tories who defected to Reform UK, because he is saying Britain should leave the European convention on human rights.
I know the fella. Is he the chap that one day was on the very much on the left of the Conservative party and is now on the right of the Conservative Party?... No one knows who he is.
I’m sure government can agree that support and providing opportunities for young people should be central to the policy of any government. We are glad to see the government working to build closer economic and cultural ties with Europe. We want to forge a new partnership with our European neighbours, built on cooperation, not confrontation and move to a new comprehensive agreement.
We must build rebuild confidence through seeking to agree partnerships or associations helping to restore prosperity and opportunities for British people.
We are not going to give a running commentary on the negotiations. We will obviously look at EU proposals on a range of issues, but we are clear that we will not return to freedom of movement.
Continue reading...Thinktank says tax increases in budget will be necessary even if Rachel Reeves changes fiscal rules
Keir Starmer’s promise to end austerity and rebuild public services will require tax increases of £25bn a year in the coming budget even if debt rules are changed to provide scope for extra investment spending, a leading thinktank has said.
In its preview of the first Labour budget in 14 years, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said Rachel Reeves would need to raise taxes to fresh record levels to meet the government’s policy goals. The chancellor was also warned of the risk of a Liz Truss-style meltdown if the City responded badly to substantially higher borrowing.
Continue reading...Shona Robison, Scottish finance secretary, says current financial situation facing Scottish government is ‘not sustainable’
Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, is launching his campaign for the Tory leadership. There is a live feed here.
Tugendhat started by saying that he did not actually want the job, because he does not want to be leader of the opposition. He wants to be prime minister, he said.
Politics is not a game, and we all know the cost when government isn’t sober and serious. We saw it in the lives lost in Afghanistan and then in that wasted chaos of that withdrawal. We saw it during Covid, not just in the lost years of education that cost so many or the opportunities missed, or even in the grief for lost loved ones or those left to cope alone, but through the disrespect.
That’s why I’m standing before you today, because this country can change. We must change, and Britain deserves better, and we need a different government.
Continue reading...The economist behind the Covid furlough scheme has called for ‘unfair’ council tax and stamp duty to be axed
Council tax and stamp duty are “unfair and unpopular” taxes that should be abolished, says the economist who devised the Covid furlough scheme.
Tim Leunig, who has advised a series of cabinet ministers, including Rishi Sunak during his prime ministership, said it was time for a new and radical approach that would axe the two taxes and replace them with proportional levies.
Continue reading...Niesr forecasts raise doubts over chance of further cuts by Bank of England before end of year
The UK’s economic recovery will accelerate over the next year, forcing the Bank of England to keep interest rates higher for longer, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr).
Signalling that bets on further interest rate cuts before the end of the year could be misplaced, the thinktank said a modest economic recovery and the threat from persistent inflationary trends should make the central bank more cautious about reducing the cost of borrowing.
Continue reading...Experts say 5.5% pay increase for public sector not ‘consistent’ with spending plans that rule out tax rises
Labour is fast approaching a moment of truth over its election pledges on tax and spending, experts have warned, after Rachel Reeves indicated the government could agree above-inflation pay rises for public sector staff.
The chancellor promised a full statement on pay board recommendations that teachers and NHS workers should receive 5.5% pay awards, ahead of an autumn budget that is set to be one of the most difficult economic balancing acts in years.
Continue reading...Prime minister faces claim Tories are ‘stealing the candlesticks’ on the way out of government
After a passage in his speech attack Labour on familiar grounds, Rishi Sunak also hit out at Reform UK.
[Reform UK] are not on the side of who you think they are.
Reform are standing candidates here in Scotland that are pro independence and anti monarchy.
Continue reading...Ministers left with unpalatable options of raising tuition fees, making grants or capping student numbers, says IFS
The next government faces “unpalatable” choices between raising tuition fees, making direct grants or capping student numbers to rescue universities in England from their financial black hole, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.
The thinktank said universities that relied on teaching UK students for the bulk of their income were most vulnerable, calculating that undergraduate tuition fees would now be £12,000 if they had kept pace with inflation, rather than the £9,250 rate frozen since 2016.
Continue reading...Sir Anthony Seldon leads analysis that concludes that equality, growth and the UK’s standing in the world have all declined since 2010
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And here are some of the best pictures from yesterday’s campaigning. As more voting people than ever appear poised to turn away from the Tories, Sunak appeared in several photographs with sheep and lobsters as he visited North Devon, held by the Tories since 2015. The Guardian’s Archie bland named the sheep the “Dubious photo opportunity of the day”, after the sheep ran away:
Starmer, meanwhile, appeared on LBC where he clarified that Premier League Football Clubs would not be subject to a 10% transfer tax to fund clubs lower down the pyramid. “Let me just kill it dead, we’re not looking at that,” Starmer said. He also visited a tennis club and a pub in Reading West and mid Berkshire.
Continue reading...Institute for Fiscal Studies praised Conservatives’ ambition but said by some measures gap had widened
Progress towards a series of levelling up goals set by the UK government has been “glacial”, and achieving them by the target date of 2030 will require a big increase in resources for struggling areas, a leading thinktank has said.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said that, on many measures, regional inequality had widened and the UK had gone into reverse.
The share of pupils in England meeting expected standards at the end of primary school dropped from 65% in 2018–19 to 60% in June 2023, against a target of 90% by 2030. In only 10 English local authorities – all in London – did at least 70% of 11-year-olds meet this target.
The total number of further education and skills courses completed in England fell by 14% between 2018–19 and 2022–23. In the lowest skilled areas, the decline was almost 20%. The goal for 2030 is to have 200,000 more people successfully completing high-quality skills training annually, driven by 80,000 more people completing courses in the lowest skilled areas.
A 21-percentage-point gap in the average employment rate between the best and worst-performing local authority areas in the UK – the widest it has been since at least 2005. The aim is to have rising pay, employment and productivity in every area of the UK, and a smaller gap between the top performing areas and others.
The Conservatives’ aim is for local transport connectivity across England to be significantly closer to the standards of London, but the gap between the use of public transport in London (39% of journeys) and in the rest of the country (7%) during 2022-23 was at its second-widest level since 2002–03, as passenger numbers failed to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
Continue reading...IFS research shows 670,000 more children will be hit by policy by end of next parliament if limit stays in place
Keir Starmer is facing renewed pressure to scrap the two-child benefit limit, as research reveals that 250,000 more children will be hit by the policy over the next year alone.
Labour’s manifesto for government, published last week, included the promise of an “ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty”, but no mention of the two-child limit.
Continue reading...The Greens’ spending commitments include £50bn for the NHS and £29bn to insulate homes
In an interview with ITV due to be broadcast on Wednesday evening, Rishi Sunak says he went without “lots of things” as a child, including Sky TV.
Sunak was pressed in the interview by the ITV journalist Paul Brand to give examples of things he didn’t have a child to which he replied: “There’ll be all sorts of things that I would’ve wanted as a kid that I couldn’t have. Famously, Sky TV, so that was something that we never had growing up actually.”
Continue reading...PM acknowledges in BBC Panorama interview to air tonight that it is a challenge for people to buy their first home
Davey sums up the Lib Dems’ plans on health and social care
And he says he wants to mention one other policy he is particularly proud of – the proposal to give proper bereavement support to parents whose partners have died.
Continue reading...Labour leader says PM’s tactics in Tuesday night TV debate show he is dishonest when put under pressure
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has been fined for speeding after being caught doing 73mph in a 60mph zone on the M1, PA Media reports. PA says:
Details of the case, dealt with under an administrative system called the single justice procedure, were revealed by the Evening Standard newspaper.
Davey wrote a letter of explanation in which he said he had tried to pay a speeding ticket issued by Bedfordshire police after he was caught speeding on the M1 near Caddington.
Continue reading...Labour leader says prime minister’s claim he would raise people’s taxes by £2,000 is ‘nonsense’
The Guardian’s visuals team has produced an interactive boundary map for the UK general election which shows you if your constituency has been altered because of boundary changes. You can check it out here:
Ed Davey has been speaking about his party’s plan to provide free personal care for adults. The Liberal Democrats leader said he wants carers to have a special, higher minimum wage.
Continue reading...Real-terms funding per pupil at 2010 levels, teacher pay at 2001 levels, and building investment 25% below mid-2000s
Spending on each schoolchild’s education in England has suffered an unprecedented 14-year-freeze since the Conservatives came to power, according to Britain’s leading economics thinktank.
Funding per pupil is now at 2010 levels in real terms, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said in its latest analysis of school spending, while teacher pay was at about the same real-terms level as in 2001.
Continue reading...Thinktank says proposal to pay for scheme by scrapping shared prosperity fund would downgrade efforts to level up country
Rishi Sunak’s election pledge to introduce mandatory national service would leave the UK’s poorest regions millions of pounds worse off, a thinktank has warned.
The prime minister announced last weekend that if he was re-elected, every 18-year-old would have to spend time in a competitive, full-time military commission or spend one weekend a month volunteering in “civil resilience”.
Continue reading...Thinktank says extra funding eaten up by higher inflation despite greater demand with service in poor state of repair
Spending on the NHS in England has risen less quickly than the Conservatives promised at the last election despite the extra demand created by the pandemic and record waiting lists, a leading thinktank has said.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said increases in funding from the government had been eaten up by higher than expected inflation and, as a result, NHS day-to-day spending had grown by 2.7% a year during the current parliament – below the 3.3% pledged by Boris Johnson in 2019.
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