While the big news today has been the Budget, debate has also been taking place in the Lords, where the first Trade Union Bill report stage debate is underway. Among the issues the Lords are debating are amendments which would implement the recommendations from the Lords Select Committee on Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party…
At the Conservative party conference last year David Cameron announced that a future Conservative government would seek to introduce two separate income tax cuts: an above inflation increase in the personal allowance and a rise in the higher rate threshold (the amount of income that can be earned before paying the 40 per cent rate…
How could £12 billion of welfare cuts be achieved? We have previously looked at the sorts of changes that would be needed to raise the revenues the Chancellor has set out. These proposals make clear the enormity of changes being considered. For example (with all changes concerned with the position by 2017/18): If Jobseekers Allowance…
In Box 4.5 of their Economic and Fiscal forecast the OBR set out a few helpful home truths about the UK’s deficit reduction plan compared to competitor economies over 2009 to 2014. Their conclusions are striking: The UK was the only country where the deficit has not been reduced by having revenue growing faster than…
Hidden away in the OBR’s charts are some important figures on ‘Total Managed Expenditure’ – essentially all of the money government spends on services, pensions, help for low income workers and capital investment. These data show that in the years immediately after the election the Chancellor is now planning to cut spending more than he…
There was much pre-Budget speculation that the Chancellor was going to use today’s Budget to ease off on austerity and reduce the scale of planned public service cuts in the year ahead. But although he’s made some minor changes to his future forecasts, the scale of spending reductions he has scheduled for the next parliament is…
Yesterday’s OBR report sets out the impacts that low wage work is having for tax revenues, suggesting that the £17bn shortfall we assessed that low earnings have created to date (as set out in IPPR analysis for the TUC last week) is likely to be even larger.
Many are already reporting today’s Autumn Statement in terms of the immediate changes to stamp duty and air travel. But the big headlines were not in the Chancellor’s speech. It’s the OBR’s chilling analysis of the spending cuts that are set to come that should be the real story of today’s announcements.
Today’s press stories around the Treasury’s income tax breakdowns make the political purpose of these statements clear: ‘How the biggest chunk of your hard-earned tax goes on welfare’ reports the Daily Mail. ‘Families will be sent letters by the Government showing that a quarter of their taxes are spent on Britain’s welfare budget’ states the Telegraph.
When the Governor of the Bank of England addressed the TUC earlier today he told unions that they were right to ask ‘when will Britain get a pay rise’? He started by setting out his analysis of the significant changes our jobs market has experienced in recent years. While more people are in work than…