Autumn Budget 2024: Vaping tax and tobacco duty to increase October 30, 2024 Smokers and vapers are set to pay more in Britain as Chancellor Rachel Reeves today announced a new vaping tax and an increase in tobacco duty during her Autumn Budget. She confirmed that the government will introduce a “flat rate duty” on all vaping liquid from October 2026, while also renewing the tobacco duty escalator [...]
Autumn Budget 2024: OBR forecasts how much economy will grow October 30, 2024 Forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility were published alongside the new government's first Budget.
Autumn Budget 2024: UK government bonds volatile as FTSE 100 dips October 30, 2024 Financial markets have wobbled in response to the new government's maiden Budget, with gilt yields jumping and the FTSE 100 ticking down.
Firms worry about flatlining growth amid Budget tax rises concerns October 30, 2024 Private sector firms expect to see growth flatline in the final months of the year, a survey suggests, as concerns about the Budget build. For the second successive month, the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) growth indicator showed that businesses do not expect to see any change in activity over the next quarter. The CBI [...]
Budget Day dawns: Bosses are ‘concerned and apprehensive’ October 30, 2024 Business leaders are concerned and apprehensive as Budget day dawns and firms from start-ups to Square Mile stalwarts wait with bated breath for Rachel Reeves to reveal the extent of the tax rises contained in the government’s first fiscal event after 14 years out of power. Pollsters asked bosses and senior executives to select from [...]
You can’t rebuild Britain by punishing people who build businesses October 30, 2024 Today, the Chancellor will attempt to write this government into a grand historical narrative that stretches back in Labour folklore to 1945. It was then, Rachel Reeves will say this afternoon, that the Labour Party “rebuilt our country out of the rubble of the Second World War.” Moving forward a couple of decades she will [...]
These two mistakes are making today’s Budget harder than it needs to be October 30, 2024 The problem with Rachel Reeves promising both ‘stability’ and ‘growth’ is that the two can be mutually exclusive. Governments do not create growth; businesses do and they rely on innovation and risk taking, says Alys Denby Not since George Osborne’s ‘caesar’ cut has a Chancellor’s hair-do caused such a sensation. Did Rachel Reeves’ newly auburn [...]
Budget 2024: No10 claim Hunt trying to ‘blame referee’ as OBR row heats up October 29, 2024 Jeremy Hunt is trying to “blame the referee” amid a row over an OBR review into the previous government’s departmental spending plans, No10 has claimed. The former Chancellor has criticised the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for choosing to publish its findings as to whether it was given adequate financial information from Conservative ministers ahead [...]
Rachel Reeves needs to be able to sell her borrowing to the market October 29, 2024 The first female Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, fears following in the footsteps of the last female Prime Minister in her Autumn Budget statement. The Gilt market sell-off in the wake of the Truss/Kwarteng fiscal event two years ago didn’t just cast a huge shadow over the Conservative Party; it reminded all politicians that financial markets can [...]
Wealth tax ‘could cost the UK £100bn in 10 years’ October 29, 2024 The UK is especially vulnerable to the ill effects of a wealth tax and could suffer a near £100bn hit to its GDP in a decade were one introduced, a paper out today has argued. A two per cent tax applied to those with a net wealth of £10m would incur a 0.4 per cent [...]