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…
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…
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…
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…