Yesterday I spoke at the United Nations Conference on Development (UNCTAD) meeting ‘Taking stock of international investment agreement reform’ which looked at the options for reform to investment protections such as ISDS that are currently used in international investment agreements…Read more…
Triple whammy defeat for government over #TUbill
Members of the House of Lords voted to defeat the government three times inside three hours tonight during the report stage debate for the trade union bill. The votes concerned substantial amendments to the bill over electronic balloting for strike vot…Read more…
Spare us the cutter
Unite has slammed Chancellor George Osborne’s budget as a failed opportunity from a “one trick Chancellor” – that trick being to cut – because he refuses to take action that would grow our economy….Read more…
#Budget2016: Pensions freedom tax boost for Treasury but what now for the workplace pension?
For the Chancellor, it was one bit of fiscal news to cheer in a Budget of downward revisions, cuts and slices. The Treasury has netted £200 million more than expected in tax from pension fund withdrawals after dramatically loosening restrictions in April.
The post #Budget2016: Pensions freedom tax…Read more…
#Budget2016 arithmetic made simple: the madness of George’s surplus rule
The Chancellor has broken his welfare cap. He bust his debt rule (again). The great part of the policy action seems to have been about making sure it wasn’t a full house of broken rules. Because of the significantly weaker economy, government revenues were down by an average of around £10bn a year…Read more…
What are the Lords debating on trade union political funds?
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…Read more…
#Budget2016: What’s behind the changes to business taxation?
George Osborne has cut corporation tax again. In 2020, the rate will go down to 17% – lower than the basic rate of income tax. Given the extent of the cuts being meted out to welfare spending and local government services, this choice – forecast to cost nearly £1 billion when it comes in…Read more…
Schools take centre stage in #Budget2016
As trailed in yesterday’s press, a centrepiece of the Budget is a move to make every school in England an academy and to strip local authorities of their long-standing role in education. The signs were there that this was on the cards with the Times reporting earlier this month that there would be…Read more…
Toughen up on Chinese steel call
The UK government will leave itself open to accusations of ‘selling British steel down the river’ if it continues to block moves announced today (March 16) to tackle the dumping of cheap Chinese…Read more…
Broken ‘covenant’
At the height of the financial crisis, the Royal Bank of Scotland came under the auspices of taxpayers and received a bailout of £45bn. Since then, the bank’s implicit covenant with taxpayers…Read more…
Altering tax thresholds is an expensive way to aid the well-paid
The chancellor has promised measures to increase the personal tax allowance (PTA) for low-paid workers (the amount they can earn in a year before being liable for tax) also the higher rate threshold (HRT) (the point beyond which tax increases to 40%). …Read more…
Update: #Budget2016 is much better for the better off
Quick update Earlier today I discussed the costs and benefits of the Chancellor’s plans to increase the personal tax allowance (PTA) to £12,500 and the higher rate threshold (HRT) to £50,000 by 2020 (Spoiler alert: the costs are high and the benefits are scant). Today the Chancellor took a…Read more…
#Budget2016: Women and low income households again bearing the brunt of austerity
Last weekend the Women’s Budget Group published a cumulative assessment of ten years of austerity, covering both the Coalition government (2010-15) and the policies announced thus far by the Conservative government that took office in May 2015. The findings of the research could not have been…Read more…
#Budget2016: No let up for the public services squeeze
2019/20 is shaping up to be a very tough year for public services, with enormous pressure on departmental budgets as the Chancellor attempts to achieve his budget surplus in that year. £3.5bn additional cuts to departmental budgets – excluding those protected areas of education, health,…Read more…
#Budget2016 risks Right to Buy groundhog folly
Today in the Budget the Chancellor once again asserted that ‘…we are the builders’. However, this hasn’t yet been borne out when it comes to housing. In the 2015 Autumn Statement, and again in the Budget, the Chancellor set out the government’s commitment to deliver 400,000 affordable housing…Read more…
Industrial and Environmental Policy in Budget 2016: Is that it?
Like the rest of the Budget, measures announced today to address industry, energy and the environment were distinctly underwhelming. I’ve just ploughed through the Budget document (the so-called ‘red book’) and perhaps the Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty sums it up in my favourite tweet of the day:…Read more…
#Budget2016 ignores housing crisis
Sadly although Chancellor Osborne once again asserted that his party were “the builders”, today’s budget largely ignored the housing crisis. The best that can be said is that there bit was a commitment of £115 million to help the homeless and rough sleepers, who must be the…Read more…
#Budget2016: Teachers’ pay under attack
The Chancellor’s announcement on academies in today’s budget represents, among other things, a significant attack on national pay bargaining in a sector that is overwhelmingly made up of women workers. The imposition of academy status on schools up and down the country matters to all of us. It…Read more…
#Budget2016: Lifetime ISA – an attempt to kill two birds with one stone
The Budget spectacle is usually littered with animal references: rabbits out of hats, foxes shot and so on. This year we can add to the zoological ranks, an attempt to kill two birds with one stone. A Chancellor faced with a generation struggling to ge…Read more…
This budget does nothing to make it easier to trust government on education
In a weakening global economy, people will rightly ask how the British government is providing opportunity for them. A high quality education system benefits everyone. But just because government…Read more…