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…
Work allowances – the nasty little cut in the #AutumnStatement
This afternoon the Chancellor told us that one of his “steps to control benefit spending” will be “freezing Universal Credit work allowances for a further year”. The work allowance is one of the key elements of Universal Credit – it is the amount of earnings you’re allowed before your Universal…Read more…
The ‘long-term plan’ is a political plan not an economic plan
Today the OBR released figures that showed, as widely expected, deficit reduction to date has stalled. Balancing the books (one further year into the future) relies on eye-watering and dangerous cuts in departmental spending. Meantime, in the economy, household debts have been revised up by £174…Read more…
Autumn Statement 2014 stamp duty give away will do nothing to solve the housing crisis
Many eyes will be on the stamp duty tax cuts announced in the autumn statement today, but this will do little to address the UK’s entrenched housing crisis. A very unpalatable truth for supporters of the current government is that total home ownership has declined in every year since 2008….Read more…
Autumn Statement 2014 – What’s in it for industry?
Today’s Autumn Statement contained an important package on growth and productivity. So what did we get? And was it enough? First, there was good news on infrastructure. £15bn was committed to improve the national road network. This includes around £6bn to resurface 80% of the national…Read more…
Britain needs a pay rise, but this #AutumnStatement won’t give us one
Listening to today’s Autumn Statement, it’s clear the living standards crisis has wrecked the Chancellor’s strategy. He has failed his deficit reduction pledge as low-paid Britain is paying much less tax than expected – £17bn less in fact. And businesses won’t be able to find the…Read more…
Austerity will continue to hit frontline flood defences
One thing at least is clear from the Autumn Statement: austerity measures will continue to undermine our national response to climate change, notably our frontline flood defences. No new money is involved in the multi-year capital programme for flood d…Read more…
Catch-22, Cuban style
Tonight (Wednesday 3 December), the traditional annual Vigil for the Cuban Five will take place outside the US Embassy in London. The gathering, now in its 8th year, calls on the US to honour calls…Read more…
Tens of thousands of single parents face wrongful sanctions
Sanctions have been a key plank in welfare policy for both Labour and the coalition government. They are designed to make sure that claimants looking, or preparing, for work comply with the requirements the job centre places on them in return for their…Read more…
Safety inspections are a requirement, not an option says ILO.
The International Labour Organisation, which sets international regulations on a range of employment and health and safety issues has just considered a case that could have ramifications for the…Read more…
Questions for coalition on flood defence promises
Increased spending on flood defences and exploratory talks for the first lagoon power project with potential to provide 8% of the UK’s energy have been trailed as key to the government’s infrastructure plans. But already the Oppostion is arguing that this is not new money – at the beginning…Read more…
Child Slavery: Tell the UN to act
Last week, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the adoption of United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC),the Global March Against Child Labour along with International Trade…Read more…
What about the workers?
1 December 2014
By Steve Ludlam, Steve Ludlam is Senior Lecturer in Politics at The University of Sheffield
Commentary on Cuba’s economic reforms highlights the growing private sector, implying…Read more…
The invisible role of trade unions in the fight against slavery
On Saturday the Home Office released a new strategy for combating modern slavery or forced labour in Britain and abroad. We’re still digesting it, because, surprisingly, we weren’t…Read more…
Swaziland’s Marikana in the making?
Striking Swazi miners have retreated to a nearby hill in protest at the way they are being treated by their employer and the Swazi police, in a worrying echo of what happened ahead of the infamous…Read more…