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Tom P makes a great defence of public sector pensions from Paul Ormerod’s attack
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Richard Murphy finds that HMT endorses TUC estimate of tax gap
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Top post from Sunder Katwala on the politics of bonuses. He is absolutely right about the angry middle.
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Among the multiple tax announcements in today’s PBR was a committment to create a new Hidden Economy Advisory Group to consider what actions HMRC can take to increase the number of people that make the transition from the hidden to the formal economy. The group is described as an opportunity to utilise external expertise in these areas, and to re-consider the issue of informal work ten years on from the Government’s first action in this area when the Grabiner Report was published – this is good news.
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Two weeks ago, Left Foot Forward set out five ‘red lines’ for a progressive pre-Budget report. What are the scores on the doors?
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Community Links raise some concerns about the Better Off In Work Credit roll out
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The November 2009 update of Social Policy Digest is now available online, providing up-to-date listings of policy developments, practice changes, research reports and publications in the whole range of social policy areas, complete with links to original documents and related comment/press coverage. The archive of material, dating back to 2002, now contains some 24,000 items and is also available online. The Digest is now a freely accessible resource.
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Philip Pearson
Today – 10 December – is Human Rights Day 2009. In a new report marking the day, former UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson argues that:
“The lens of climate justice, incorporating principles of human rights to guide policy and practical responses to climate change, is an essential aspect of climate change policy – at global and national level”.
With millions risking water shortages, forced migration and the disappearance of entire nations beneath rising seas, the ITUC has itself called on the UN to include human and labour rights in the new agreement here at Copenhagen.
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Adam Lent
Fascinating to hear an interview (go to 8.40am slot) on the Today programme this morning with someone who actually works on the bond markets rather than just comments on them. In total contradiction of the claim that the markets are very nervous about levels of government borrowing and only remain calm currently because they expect George Osborne to be Chancellor in a few months, this Morgan Stanley employee sounded very sanguine.
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Alice Hood
Today’s PBR gave some positive signals on transport, with a distinctly green hue. Unfortunately there wasn’t much detail, nor much new money, though there was a welcome financial boost for electric vehicles.
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Philip Pearson
Today at the UN Copenhagen conference has been all about the vital role of active Government in tackling climate change.
We’ve had helpful reassurances here that the UK hadn’t signed up to the unhelpful “Danish text” that I blogged on yesterday. A big distraction from the real task at hand – securing a viable UN text by next Wednesday. Unions joined with other Major Observer groups this afternoon in a two-way dialogue with the UN chair, Michael Zammet.
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Nicola Smith
Today’s PBR contained some important policy announcements on welfare and labour market policy – but nothing earth shattering. The Young Person’s Guarantee will now be available to unemployed 18-24 year olds after 6 months of claiming JSA (with compulsory participation in the Community Task Force now starting after 10 months). However, there was no specific commitment to increase the number of Future Jobs Fund jobs, or to make the Guarantee a permanent feature of welfare to work policy.
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Brendan Barber
Bankers are up in arms about the one off tax on bonuses, but they still don’t get it. They have no divine right to giant bonuses every year. The Chancellor’s proposal today is at the modest end of what he could have done, and is only a single one-off tax.
Bankers would be well advised to stop complaining and spend today instead reading what happened to the boy who cried wolf.
Robert Peston has an interesting take on the bonus tax. He clearly thinks it is a clever move.
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Brendan Barber
We were glad to see the extension of the Young Person’s Guarantee (the guarantee of a job, work placement or training for any 18-24 year old out of work for at least six months) in today’s Pre-Budget Report. It shows that the Government has learned the lessons of previous recessions and is taking decisive action to prevent another ‘lost generation’ of young people.
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Nigel Stanley
This is what I think has happened on the pensions front in today’s PBR.
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Tim Page
In his updated Treasury forecasts, published as part of the Pre-Budget Report, the Chancellor demonstrated why we cannot take economic growth for granted and why action to begin repaying the fiscal deficit should definitely be postponed for the time being.