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...The government is facing calls to cease trading with DP World because of its partnership with Putin’s northern sea route
Ministers are facing calls to review the UK’s financial ties to the multinational logistics company DP World over its business deals in Russia.
The business announced a £1bn expansion of the London Gateway port earlier this month, despite a row over the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, calling its ferry subsidiary, P&O Ferries, a “rogue operator”.
Continue reading...Group of wealthy investors argue it would have no impact on investment in the UK and would raise vital funds for public services
Rachel Reeves has been urged by a group of millionaire business owners to raise £14bn from an increase in capital gains tax at this month’s budget, arguing it would have no impact on investment in Britain.
Ahead of the chancellor’s set-piece event on 30 October, the group of wealthy investors said increasing the tax rate on asset disposals would help to raise vital funds for public services and would not lead to slower economic growth.
Continue reading...Thinktank reports saying sector should be hit with extra £900m to £3bn in levies prompts market selloff
Shares in British gambling companies have dropped sharply, reducing the stock market value of large operators by more than £3bn, after the Guardian reported that Treasury officials could tap the sector for between £900m and £3bn in extra taxes.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has come under pressure from two influential thinktanks to raise taxes on the industry, as she pulls every available lever to plug a £22bn “black hole” in the nation’s finances.
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...European Centre for International Political Economy outlines a plan to bring the two sides closer
The UK must stop being “naive” about negotiations to reset relations with the EU and show more flexibility in its approach to Brussels, a trade policy thinktank has said.
As EU leaders question how much has changed in the UK despite the new government, the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) has outlined a plan to bring the two sides closer after a series of reports that the EU doubted Keir Starmer’s commitment to a reset.
Continue reading...Joseph Rowntree Foundation points to ‘critical shift in expectations’ and says the public now budget for many routine services
Most people in the UK now believe they will have to spend their own money on private healthcare for routine services such as dentistry, physiotherapy and counselling because they won’t be able to get them quickly on the NHS, pioneering new research has found.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says its findings, based on extensive focus group analysis, is evidence that Britons have undergone a “critical shift in expectations” about the health service’s capacity to meet their needs.
Continue reading...Announcement follows questions over exceptional appointments of Labour donor and former thinktank staffer
The civil service appointments watchdog has launched a review of exceptional appointments to official jobs after a row about alleged cronyism, following a Labour donor and a former thinktank staffer being given roles.
Gisela Stuart, the first civil service commissioner, has written to the heads of all government departments asking for details of any appointments since 1 July that were made without going through the normal civil service recruitment processes.
Continue reading...Campaigners fear increase by £149 in energy price cap by Ofgem will put more pressure on households
Households will begin the run-up to winter with a sharp increase in their energy bills after the industry regulator increased its cap on energy prices by 9.5% from October.
Under the new price cap, the average annual energy bill will rise to £1,717 a year for gas and electricity, up £149 from its current level of £1,568, which has been in place since July.
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...Exclusive: Defence thinktank Rusi says rightwing violence ‘often classified as mere thuggery’ by politicians and prosecutors
The UK has a “two-tier approach” to extremism that fails to treat far-right attacks as seriously as Islamist ones, a leading thinktank has said.
The Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) says rightwing violence “is often classified as mere thuggery” by politicians, prosecutors and the security services. Equivalent acts by Islamists would “swiftly be labelled as terrorism”, it says in an article in the Guardian.
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...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...Analysis by leading experts the Nuffield Trust reveals that main parties’ manifestos would squeeze health spending
Labour and the Conservatives would both leave the NHS with lower spending increases than during the years of Tory austerity, according to an independent analysis of their manifestos by a leading health thinktank.
The assessment by the respected Nuffield Trust of the costed NHS policies of both parties, announced in their manifestos last week, says the level of funding increases would leave them struggling to pay existing staff costs, let alone the bill for massive planned increases in doctors, nurses and other staff in the long-term workforce plan agreed last year.
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.
Continue reading...Leading social scientists issue warning after call by business leaders and London Stock Exchange
More than 20 leading social scientists have warned the UK’s biggest investment companies and pension funds that allowing US-style executive pay packages could “create a significant risk of higher inequality” and “much worse lower levels of happiness, health and wellbeing across society”.
The academics said they had decided to speak out as an increasing number of British business leaders and the London Stock Exchange have argued for much higher pay awards to improve the UK’s competitiveness.
Continue reading...ICMPD expects people to try to move before anticipated post-election tightening of migration laws
Migration to Europe will increase in 2024 as people try to reach the continent before the introduction of new laws aimed at cutting the number of arrivals, a leading thinktank has said.
Unsettled by multiple election campaigns in Europe, including the UK, and the US, during which immigration will be a divisive topic, many of those looking to come to Europe will rush to arrive before the system changes, predicted the Austrian-based International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).
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