The Spectator magazine recently held an energy event called The UK Domestic Energy Landscape: Fixing Britain’s Energy Market, hosted at the offices of the law firm Eversheds. Carbon Brief reported that it “was best summed up” by one of their partners Marcus Trinick who said: “There is no such…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: the poorest pay 47 per cent of their income in tax (the richest pay 34 per cent)
(Warning: long post.) In his Autumn Statement speech the Chancellor claimed to be a modern day Robin Hood: In fact, the net contribution [to austerity] of the richest 20% will be larger than the remaining 80% put together – proving we are all in this together. This is similar to an argument you…Read more…
Lima blog #5: People at work on the frontline of change
Here at #COP20 in Lima, the UN’s current negotiating text ignores the realities of the world of work. Inexplicably, the UN has omitted previously agreed text on securing a Just Transition to a low carbon world. Today, the ITUC backed by trade unions from around the globe are calling a press…Read more…
The missing full time employee jobs
Hardly a week goes by when we do not hear Ministers boasting about record employment levels. Yes, employment levels may be rising to record levels; however, this is a result of the rising numbers in the working population. The employment rate at 73% ha…Read more…
New evidence private firms are taking over more and more of our NHS
The British Medical Journal today published new evidence to show how privatisation of NHS services is continuing to intensify under this government. Using Freedom of Information requests to Clinical Commissioning Groups, they found that of 3,494 contra…Read more…
Lima Diary 4: Peru shows #COP20 the front lines of climate change
Here at COP20 in Lima, the union observer camp was mightily relieved to hear an EU delegate acknowledging their agreement with a key part of our own lobbying by saying: “We propose a reference to the social and employment dimension of the transition towards a low carbon society: the need for just…Read more…
Are in-work benefits in the UK a magnet for EU migrants?
Should the UK be aiming to restrict access to benefits for citizens of other EU countries who are working here? The Prime Minister made this objective the centrepiece of his recent speech on migration: ‘Someone coming to the UK from elsewhere in the EU, who is employed on the minimum wage and who…Read more…
Lima Diary 3: The right to union recognition at #COP20
What trade unions are basically looking for here at #COP20 in Lima is union recognition, and with that, the right to represent our members. In a sense this is no more complicated than any struggle be it among contract cleaners, cinema workers, or in th…Read more…
Lima Diary 2: Groundhog day for ‘just transition’ at #COP20
The #1 objective of the ITUC delegation here in Lima is to ensure the UN honours its commitment to a Just Transition in the negotiating text now in draft form. The UN first made this decision five years ago this month in Cancun. Back then, the 16th ann…Read more…
EU investment plan – accelerating with the brakes on
One thing the ETUC has been repeating ad nauseam since the crisis is the need for a European investment plan to drive growth and jobs. Almost everyone seems to have come round to agreeing with us recently including the new President of the European Com…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: Jobseekeer’s Allowance costs 0.3% of GDP
Why does George Osborne emphasise the government’s benefit cuts? As The Economist noted after the Conservative Party conference, even when his cuts are a comparatively small element of his plans, he still talks them up. Mr Osborne is a notoriously ‘political’ Chancellor, and he knows that polls…Read more…
Funding for minimum wage enforcement to increase by £3m
There was a promise to increase minimum wage enforcement funding by £3 million next year hidden away in the detail of the autumn statement. “The National Minimum Wage (NMW) provides important protection for low earners. To improve its enforcement, Autumn Statement announces that the…Read more…
OBR set out scale of tax losses from low pay growth
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. Firstly, the OBR point to various…Read more…
Questions on public service pensions accounting in the Autumn Statement
The Chancellor claimed that the Autumn Statement was a slight fiscal tightening – in other words, that predicted income resulting from the policies announced would slightly exceed predicted expenditure. I blogged yesterday about the considerable uncertainty surrounding the budget contribution the…Read more…
Autumn Statement 2014: The Touchstone roundup
The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement is in the papers today for stamp duty changes to help home buyers and a clampdown on tax avoidance. Our bloggers have been unpicking some of the other details though, and they’ve found a rather less rosy picture: Philip Pearson saw little or no benefit…Read more…
Autumn Statement: The most common government boast on the gender pay gap
Minutes into opening his Autumn Statement, the Chancellor repeated one of the most common government boasts about the gender pay gap – that it is the lowest ever on record. Almost all Chancellors in the past 40 years could have said this. It’s hardly something to brag about, especially when last…Read more…
Umbrella companies “con trick” – review promised in Autumn Statement
A word of hope now. In the section of the Autumn Statement that dealt with tax avoidance the Chancellor said : “we are also consulting on ….the use of so called ‘umbrella companies’ to deprive people of basic employment rights like the minimum wage and avoid tax.” An umbrella…Read more…
Tackling corporate tax avoidance in the Autumn Statement – measures welcome but will they work?
The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) notes that the ‘giveaways’ and the ‘takeaways’ in the Autumn Statement roughly balance out. A huge proportion of the so-called ‘takeaways’ – ie, that will generate net income for government revenues – stem from measures to tackle corporate tax avoidance and…Read more…
#AutumnStatement 2014: No budget for a green economy
This was no budget for a green economy. There’s no notion of how the Chancellor’s infrastructure plans or business incentives would contribute to green growth, nor how to avoid any of the downside risks of these plans. Environmental levies look increasingly like a straight revenue raiser….Read more…
The real story of the Autumn Statement: the OBR tell the Chancellor to think again
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…Read more…