A year ago I spoke about the MarchĀ budget and stated that the official forecasts were far too gloomy. In particular the deficit would be much lower than the Ā£233 bn for the current year that they expected.
At the half year stage the OBR changed its deficit forecast, slicing a large Ā£50bn off it. I commented that it was still too high. Yesterday they admitted that the second half year saw the need to take another Ā£55bn off the forecast, bringing the total change to a massive Ā£105bn for the year as a whole. A similar overstatement of the deficit had occurred in the previous year. This year’s document contains an anguished passage on why they so understated the tax revenues coming in from the lower rates being charged before the rises this spring. The extra revenue is so huge that clearly they do not need the extra Ā£12bn from the National Insurance hike .
It is a pity the Treasury did not grasp the opportunity to use some of the overshoot of revenue to allow some selective further tax cuts. Choose the right ones and you may anyway end up with more revenue, as they did with Stamp Duty.
The Treasury has at last got round to removing VAT from insulation, boiler controls and other products that can help people cut their home heating bills. This EU tax needed to go. It is disappointing to learn they think they cannot remove these taxes for Northern Ireland under the Protocol. That is by no means clear from the text. They say they are seeking a solution from the EU as they acknowledge the UK government needs to be in control of all taxes anywhere in the country. They could go ahead and abolish these taxes in Northern Ireland at the same time as the rest of the UK, and could buttress the legal position by putting into the law a clause overriding any unhelpful or errant interpretation of the protocol.
The Treasury forecasts are for slowing growth, inflation persistent for this year, and too large a squeeze on incomes. Last year they also got inflation badly wrong, telling us it would run at 1.8% this year, yet it has hit 6.2%. Given the persistent money printing the Bank undertook all last year it is difficult to know why they thought inflation would be so low.
March 24, 2022
Good morning.
Does the government really follow these forecasts ? Are they deliberatly misleading ? You cannot have two seperate organisation get something they should be reasonably good at so wrong. If a business was run this way and they got there marketing and product line as badly wrong they would go bust. And getting a deficit down is laudable but, we should be seeking to obtain a tidy surplus.
March 24, 2022
PS Well done on getting the VAT on some green products removed. It is not much but it is a symbolic victory as it is a tax we could not remove whilst in the EU. Now to get it removed from our bills.
March 24, 2022
Yes, quite so, a small step for us, but what of NI? I expect shouts and screams from that quarter today. The awful Protocol must be resolved.
March 24, 2022
Peter. It’s a disgrace. I have never seem such anger on Question Time as there was tonight. I didn’t watch intentionally. It was on in the background but the tension was there in massive quantity from Conservative voters.
March 25, 2022
“They say they are seeking a solution from the EU”
Screams of disgust from Hatfield House. Vote Reform and get shot of the parasitical EU.
March 24, 2022
Today wind is supplying less than 1GW of electricity or 2.8% of demand. Bozo and Carrie Antoinette want to double down on windmill installation.
145 onshore sites have planning permission but await government subsidy to be built.
Why do they need subsidy when we are told wind is so cheap.
March 24, 2022
It would appear so Ian. China is opening up its coal mining sector to give them 620 million tons in reserve, by increasing output capacity to 300 million tons. Reported in Not a Lot of People Know That web site tagging onto a Bloomberg News report.
Meanwhile back in Europe: Victims of their own success, Europeās wind turbine makers are being crushed by rocketing power prices – caused by reliance on intermittent wind and solar. Oh, the irony… The staggering surge in European energy costs has rendered them unable to compete with Chinese manufacturers, whose operations benefit from abundant supplies of nuclear and coal-fired power. Siemens are taking a very big hit dragging its share price to the floor and it is unsettling investors. Reported on Stop these Things web site March 25th, 2022
No apparent mention of Net Zero anywhere. Are we being run by numpties or what?
Same world, but we ain’t even on the same planet.
March 24, 2022
The EU Council agreed to scrap VAT on green products last December. Far more green products than Mr Sunak did. But well done trying to catch up.
March 24, 2022
Well not quite andy
The Council only proposed that on Dec 7th last year.
7 catagories of green products may be VAT exempted.
The Council may adopt the directive once the EU Parliament has met and issued its opinion which could be in March 2022.
Then 20 days after it is published it becomes effective.
Then it is up to the EU member nations to change their VAT rules.
We as an independent nation did it yesterday.
March 24, 2022
The EU are just following the UK’s example.
The changes would not have happened if the UK were still controlled from Brussels.
March 24, 2022
Its still a level playing field and compliance with EU VAT regulations
March 24, 2022
Andy. What? Catch up with a load of petulant teenagers at the Nato summit? Ohhh, I’m not talking to you because you’ve sent more than a few helmets to Ukraine.
March 24, 2022
Yes Mark, I agree and we should also thumb our nose to the eu and do it also in Northern Ireland, it is still part of Britain no matter what the frogs think. So it deserves to be treated the same as England
March 24, 2022
Yes, my ears pricked up when I heard that, well done John.
March 24, 2022
Get rid of the ONS, OBR quangos should have been undertaken by Cameronās bonfire of quangos. They were created to deflect blame from The Treasury and Chancellor. JR uses words in recent blogs like follow guidance etc.
If JR has the ability to see through the rot why does not Sunak or the rest of cabinet before policy is signed off? Rees-Mogg appears astute with economics, has he lost his voice?
We had the apocalyptic modelling by SAGE to scare the public witless with the connivance of JRs party and govt. The govt. asked knew their definition of dying was to exaggerate the numbers of deaths. The govt could have changed the definition to make it realistic. It chose not to. The same applies here. What is the criterion for the forecasts/ modelling? Ministers are using these stats and information to base their policy choices. They are in charge not the quangos. If the quangos are not producing what the govt. wants get rid of them, provide them the criterion upon which you wish to base your policy.
Patel gave tens of millions of our taxes to France, created a task force to tackle boat people, then she had a czar, spoke sternly about Border Force who refused to turn boat people back and now she hides her figures to prevent public criticism of her!! I wonder who might be the problem?
Perhaps she and Johnson should have the courage to scrap ECHR, they wonāt because EU can revoke their awful Brexit deal sell out in 12 days of scrapping ECHR! However, all three consocialist PMs claimed to be scrapping it when getting elected!
March 24, 2022
Indeed. Although anyone would think Brexit was a recent event.
March 24, 2022
All your “victories” are almost entirely symbolic, and then only to people with extremely petty priorities, such as grinding their teeth over little rings of stars on their car number plates, or mistakenly believing that blues passports were banned.
It is, truly, lamentable.
March 24, 2022
Nothing would satisfy you NHL and young andy.
March 24, 2022
No, NLH.
There are savings on vat remitted to the EU from rest of the world imports, they’re trying to tax us even more for Chinese imports, this will no longer be the case from once we left, whereas whenever the EU felt like it, they concocted extra taxes for us to pay. The membership fees were only a part of all the fees transferred.
We will no longer be paying tax to the EU for items we don’t have in the real economy like prostitution and drug use.
Soon at the end of this year fees will be reduced considerably and then fees just for EU agreed pension entitlements.
The issue I have is Rishi is not discussing these savings, nor is he allocating these extra budgets to make life easier in the UK for people living in the UK.
This government is not taking reciprocal action when the EU fights dirty, they need to level the playing field.
March 24, 2022
some us twitch the curtains.
March 24, 2022
But NLH I have no little ring of stars on my car number plate and actually no passport as I do not need one to live in our little civilised country.
What rubbish you talk!
March 24, 2022
MFD
Well said pal. Its hard to reason with a complete and utter ##### and bad loser too boot
March 24, 2022
Often insulation projects, roof solar, heat pumps projects… especially as retro-fit do not make sense. This as the payback is so long and much energy is used in the manufacture and installation (relative to the energy saved). Payback can be 20 years or even never after financing costs. The cladding of Grenville Tower type building was idiotic in every way.
Heat-pumps use electricity which costs much more than gas does. This as so much (usually gas) heat is wasted at the power station about 50% and more in transmission. Often you need a larger very expensive electricity supply upgrades and larger radiators throughout. Also slow to heat up and down which mean leaving it on more (wasteful again). So even if you do get a 2.5 times more heat out than the electricity in it can often make little or no sense. Each individual case need proper consideration. It is not a case of heat pumps “green” in CO2 terms but gas boilers not green or public transport green but cars not green – it is far, far more complex.
In the case of Electric Cars they certainly increase CO2 compared to keeping a small older ICU car for longer and this by quite a large margin. Far more expensive and they contribute little or no tax either. Yes the government are pushing them with subsidies – so why?
March 24, 2022
I see there is no relief for domestic heating oil. I seem to remember that the 5% VAT was introduced when North Sea Gas was coming ashore and the govt. was very keen that everyone should start using it so they put this tax on to equalise the price. Not much use, of course, for those of us who have no access to a gas main.
March 24, 2022
My direct debit for oil has gone from Ā£30 a month to Ā£100 a month
Still there’s always the pension rise to fall back on.
March 24, 2022
@Mark B; How is litigating the CO2 green blob scam a victory, symbolic or otherwise?! I suspect this green blob VAT cut is nothing but symbolic PR, after all after all these years there can not be that many more older houses that need (extra) insulation etc retro-fitted, most of those that do are likely owned by those who understand that a house needs to breath, and of course new build is VAT exempt…
A far more meaningful victory for average Joe, over EU rules, would have been removal of the remaining 5% VAT on domestic fuels, if not the removal of the green blog tax surcharges imposed by successive UK govts.
March 24, 2022
What a strange post Jerry.
Mark never used the words “green blob” nor did he mention
“litigating”.
And whilst he said it was a welcome thing he actually said it was “symbolic” in his post.
March 25, 2022
Peter2
Cheers š
March 25, 2022
@Peter2; Whatever, and far less ‘strange’ than your reply to me, it’s as if you did not actually bother to read my comment, or at least not in full. Sorry for the typo, but as anyone choosing to use their clue would have quickly grasped, given the context, I meant legitimise not “litigating”.
You also ignore my comment, picking up on the words used by Mark B regarding a “symbolic” move to roll back EU rules and diktat, that abolishing VAT on domestic fuels would have been a better and more significant victory to the consumer, and it would achieve what the Labour Party wanted to do but could not because of EU rules, two birds with one stone so to speak. But, I suspect, had the Chancellor abolished VAT on such fuels it would mean a significant drop in VAT revenue, meaning less room in the coming couple of years for his promised pre-election income tax reduction (do the electorate still fall for such card tricks?…), better to cut VAT on stuff the majority either do not want or have already purchased, the under-thinking will still believe the political hype!
March 25, 2022
You are back in more ways than one.
Whatever indeed.
March 25, 2022
Once again, @Peter2, you choose to play the man, not the ball…
March 25, 2022
Once again you waffle pedantically without focusing on what your real argument is
March 26, 2022
@Peter2; Not the “real argument” you bleat, what might that be then, if not the cost of living, inflation, the tax burden etc. and their best solutions. How is debating the pros and cons of different solutions to such issues “Waffle”?!… š„
March 25, 2022
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
I will take this and bank it. But that is not to say that this is by no means the end. We must keep chipping away. And yes, it is a PR exercise over EU rules, but so too was pulse fishing, and now we must look at factory trawlers and so on.
March 25, 2022
@Mark B; Good luck trying to bank/spend what you have not saved, due to not needing to purchase those zero rated products! See my reply to @Peter2.
March 24, 2022
The people at the Treasury feel the need to outperform expectations. However, they have no confidence in their abilities. They believe they are not able to guarantee the outperformance unless they underplay expectations.
March 24, 2022
The Treasury ātoldā us inflation would be 1.8% but surely even they did not really believe this? Surely were just blatantly lying?
David Frost today:- Only a low-tax, low-spend government can solve the cost of living crisis
The British state needs a fundamental redesign, with its size reduced to the levels of successful countries such as Switzerland or Australia.
True but we need a smaller tax burden that Switzerland and Australia and cheap on demand energy, no net zero, deregulation and to get fracking.
Allister Heath:- The Tories donāt deserve to survive if they keep treating their voters like fools
Rishi Sunakās tax cuts are window-dressing to hide the Governmentās raids on middle income Britain.
Sunak (Goldman Sachs/Davos Man) is clearly determined to destroy the parties reputation for relative economic competence just as John ERM Major did. Clearly he is still determined to increase even further the size of the bloated, inept and very wasteful state sector, still hooked on the net zero insanity and driving taxes, regulation (and government waste) to new highs. This while he pathetically pretends to be the complete opposite. The public are not as stupid or gullible as you seems to think Sunak. They will see the vast standard of living fall your mad & inflationary policies are, very predictably, producing.
So we get a pathetic promise to reduce income tax by 1% in two years (after you have nearly left office). But you just put NI (an income tax up by 2×1.25%). We still have not had the Ā£1 million each IHT threshold dishonestly promised by the appalling George Osborne many year back.
Anyway your freezing of personal allowances plus your high inflation will cost far more than this 1% by then. Your rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic will fool no one but a few fools Sunak. Your parties next Manifesto will not be trusted as you have ratted on your last one so comprehensively – on NI and the triple lock.
March 24, 2022
100% correct and Tory MPs will vote for it like sheep
March 24, 2022
Not all Tory MPs are sheep, it’s just the majority.
March 24, 2022
90%?
March 24, 2022
a VERY big majority.
March 24, 2022
+1
I can see that comment too.
Yet it is āawaitingā?
March 24, 2022
‘awaiting’ a new messiah?
March 24, 2022
Not even a vote on Teressa May’s moronic, hugely harmful and hugely costly (but not costed) Net Zero agenda!
March 24, 2022
Median earners, on around Ā£27.5k, can expect to be about Ā£400 worse off in 2022-23 than in this financial year, even after the increase in the NI threshold announced today. Their employer companies worse off too due to Net Zero, expensive energy and huge tax, CT & NI rises and ever more regulation. So far less able to pay for any wage increases.
Much lower general confidence too, so far less growth and lower investment levels. The further threat of Labour/SNP to depress us further in ~ two years. Yet still they push the net zero lunacy on top of this!
Great plan Sunak/Boris/Carrie.
March 24, 2022
LL,
This is a deliberate attack on middle England. Strivers savers and the prudent beware Johnson and Sunak are after your last penny. Who now can be in any doubt?
The facts and record over 12 years show they repeatedly lied to get in office and had no intention on delivering their election promises. It is not an accident or coincidence. Sneaky underhand behaviour runs through the party and govt. We have so many examples, economy, immigration, gay marriage, climate change bills, covid, Brexit where the PM was determined to overturn the national will of the people, party and nation (Cameron and May), now Johnson!
March 25, 2022
+1
March 24, 2022
Lifelogic
The public are not as stupid or gullible?
The jury is out on that one, the forth coming May elections will be a good indication
March 24, 2022
Indeed as they can vote against the Tories in local elections without having to suffer Labour/SNP at national level (just even worse local government). Just as they could and did voted UKIP first in the EU (PR) elections.
March 24, 2022
LL. Got it in one. Let’s send a clear message.
March 24, 2022
turboterrier, I don’t think local elections are a good indication. People vote locally for sensible councillors who will try to spend their budgets efficiently and effectively. My Council changed from Tory to Labour, we’ve lost our green bin collection, we now have four big bins instead of two, not collected every week. They allow the ugliest structures being built to make the look of a nice area industrial, they don’t force the local housing association to keep on top of shop upkeep and get empty homes back in service quickly. Bills go up higher and higher. They don’t ensure new builders get the roads fixed around the estates and the roads they trash with the extra 100’s of cars. Be careful what you wish for to prove a point or it just might happen and you’ll end up with a bunch of spendthrifts in power locally for four years.
March 24, 2022
a-tracy
Is it not a Catch 22? How else can the public show the sitting government they are totally pissed off? It made CMD get off of his fan and call a referendum.
At the moment this government is playing with too many unknowns that long term are going to really hurt us big time the time for just talking is over, what is needed is action that we can at least sign onto or not as the case maybe.
It’s not about their careers anymore its about this country’s very survival.
March 24, 2022
A TRACY. We’ve already got Tory spendthrifts. Spending money on a grand opening for ……..a roundabout.
March 25, 2022
FuS who paid for the roundabout decorations? They let our roundabouts go to rack and ruin, don’t even plant them up half the time now, we get a couple of token plant troughs whilst neighbouring towns get all their parks and verges and highways planted up. I’m sick of it. They know putting 65% of the social housing there they won’t kick-off so we have to be grateful for what bit we’re given. I know what Turbo is saying how else can you indicate your displeasure but it does come with a cost locally and they don’t always get that message you’re sending, our Council had been Tory for ages, then they lost it mainly because of the pompous attitude of the leader at the time.
March 24, 2022
+2
March 24, 2022
Frost negotiated the NIP, about which you endlessly fulminate.
It’s a hoot.
March 24, 2022
No deal would I think have been far better.
But clearly it was driven by Boris and the Cabinet left a complete mess by the appalling Teressa (net zero) May. So your point is what exactly?
March 24, 2022
It was under duress. A treaty negotiated under duress is not valid according to the Vienna Convention.
March 24, 2022
How, exactly?
I thought that “we held all the cards” and “no deal was better than a bad deal” etc. etc.?
March 24, 2022
There is remainiac hearsay, and then there is cold hard fact. the 2017-19 Parliament made it impossible to negotiate because they illegitimately outlawed the PM coming away without a deal.
March 24, 2022
it proved correct, didn’t it? no deal WOULD have been better.
March 25, 2022
Parliament is sovereign.
By constitutional definition, nothing, literally nothing, that it decides is illegitimate therefore.
March 25, 2022
Parliament got its comeuppance in 2019 after desperately trying to defy the decision of the voters in the 2016 referendum.
The worst result for Labour since 1935
Greens and Lib Dems ignored.
March 24, 2022
+1 LL
March 24, 2022
Perhaps the best and only explanation is they haven’t got a clue. So they offer a few tiny baubles now, suggest a bigger one might be be coming to get the government reelected in the hope the electorate doesn’t notice the big squeeze on living standards. Some hope!
March 24, 2022
Whatās the point of The Treasury?
Are their working from the same hymn sheet they produced for Cameron and Osbourn?
Are they still trying to make the case that Brexit will make us poorer.
As for Rishy he has blown any chance of Promotion.
Now is a very good time for a rising star to leap out of the bunker and make a more positive case.
Looking at the current bunch of MPās can we spot our next leader?
March 24, 2022
I was wondering the same thing. If a department consistently gets things wrong … why are they allowed to continue? Heads should roll, unless they do this deliberately … on government instructions?
March 24, 2022
…can we spot our next leader ….of the Opposition?
March 24, 2022
Bob Dixon
Are they working?
Only in self survival mode.
Spot the new leader?
None of the present cabinet tick all the boxes. Take out the rest of the rank and file either unqualified in the real meaniful subjects and or inexperienced in real life, following like lambs to the slaughter.Got to come from the established back benchers and for me there is only one that ticks all the boxes, can operate outside them when necessary. Our host. Destined to be the best Prime Minister we were ever allowed to have.
March 24, 2022
+1
March 24, 2022
we were ever
Should be we were never
March 24, 2022
Yes. The NI situation confirms Johnsonās original lie and now weakness refusing to confront EU.
Your budget has treated us as fools, spinning tax cuts at the same time as the tax take rises to the highest in many decades hammering the wealth creators. Coupled with deliberate rises in energy costs plus inflation attacking our standard of living.
You motto should be levelling down not up. Classic socialism.
March 24, 2022
āYour budget has treated us as foolsā
If the boot fits ā¦..
March 24, 2022
+1
March 24, 2022
Many people will lose their lives because Sunak hasn’t done enough for those who are the poorest in society.
It will be a choice of eat or heat, some will be so desparate they will take they own lives.
This government has given aid to the taliban a terrorist group. The government needs to explain why terrorists are more important that they can give tax payers money away.
March 24, 2022
+1 Stephen. I am disgusted with this government, which shows such largesse to ‘uninvited guests’ and hostile countries via foreign aid, while allowing its poorest (particular pensioners) to live in abject poverty. If the country can afford 4* hotels for illegal invaders (who deliberately line the pockets of criminal traffickers), then why does it treat its LEGAL citizens so badly?
March 24, 2022
Shirley M
Bang on the money.
March 24, 2022
+1000
March 24, 2022
The net zero expensive unreliable energy agenda will kill far more people now than a little extra plant and tree food (CO2) ever will.
March 24, 2022
+1×100 LL
March 24, 2022
Lock the country down so that no-one dies of Covid, wreck the economy.
Let the same people die of hypothermia and that’s OK ???
March 24, 2022
That seems to be the plan! Thanks to Theresa May for her moronic net zero leaving office lunacy! Not even a vote on it so idiotic are most MPs.
March 24, 2022
Well, if you can’t afford to put bread on the table or heat your home, you can now go out and get VAT free insulation or a heat pump. Yippee! As usual a very Tory budget, aimed to help the better off most with nothing for the truly poor or for pensioners. Nothing put on unearned income from shares, windmills etc. and worst of all condoning the obscene profits the oil and gas producers are making. It is said a windfall tax would stop investment, but this money is not being invested, it is paying their executives big bonuses for nothing and they are buying back their own shares to force the price up so they can get even more in bonuses in future. They are hitting the poor today in order to buy votes in 2024. It was said of a Labour manifesto that it was the longest suicide note in history. This is the Tory one. Still we can console ourselves with the knowledge that the already well paid MP’s are getting 40 quid a week increase in a week or two whilst the poor can go hang (themselves) or die of cold and hunger.
March 24, 2022
Stephen Reay, what aid has this government given the Taliban?
The chancellor has changed the rules from July so that everyone earning less than Ā£12,500 per annum not pay any contribution whatsoever to the Health service or their pension. That is a benefit for the poorest who only work part-time and people on minimum wage?
I know plenty of poor people who make bad choices with money, they don’t think anything of buying a packet of fags per day at Ā£10 per pack, or a big box of tinneys in the pram tray.
They say they won’t use potatoes at the local food bank because it’s too expensive to cook with them, what utter nonsense, most have a microwave or crockpot they just can’t be bothered to peel them. 7 mins to microwave a jacket potato, or cook up 5lbs of potatoes in 30 mins boiling and put half up for another night.
The national living wage from April for those over 23 years of age is Ā£18,500 minimum for a full-time job.
This government could do more in the national curriculum to teach good money management in maths. This government could look at making it easier for home-based childminders to register for free with the local council to provide more and lower cost care than private nurseries. I know people that take in students in spare rooms (lodgers). People could arrive here penniless find work, make ends meet, share houses, etc. too many of the British poor just expect everything to be done for them and given to them but we don’t help them either by facilitating sharing, rooms for rent, shared housing, as a nation.
March 24, 2022
I would encourage John to use Parliamentary privilege to name names at the Treasury. It is evident that he believes these individuals are acting on behalf of others (EU) to undermine the UK’s sovereign powers and controls.
The Budget, as ever, was meaningless in the greater scheme of things. Pander to Labour and their unions on the public sector so has not to upset Len McCluskey and then throw under duress a few scraps to those who private taxpayers pay the bills of the nation but can’t fight back as ‘outsiders’
Managing the decline by shuffling pieces around the chessboard that is slowly becoming threadbare and worn
Another budget to suit party politics rather than the interests of those who really matter
And please never thank a politician for giving us our own money back in tax cuts
YOU’D THINK WE OWED THEM A LIVING they way they expect us to praise them…..
March 24, 2022
I agree with your opening paragraph as the Treasury is riddled with Remainers who will stop at nothing in order to undermine this country’s economy. They get support from sections of the media as they did this morning, when Sky News stepped down into the gutter about an hour ago, trying to link Risi’s wife with a company that has links with Russia.
The interviewer had failed to gain the high ground and those cowards in the back office need to be exposed
March 24, 2022
This is also clearly about making Brexit fail.
March 24, 2022
Same old, same old. Still no rallying cry to get the country to rise up and take on the huge areas of waste that exist in every sector of our society. Another real opportunity missed. As in life you remember the opportunities you took and smile and then think of all the opportunities you let go by, and tears fill your eyes.
March 24, 2022
Maybe they arenāt very good at sums?
March 24, 2022
Maybe there are economists there who present decent forcasts, but are over-ruled by the EU favouring sycophants?
March 24, 2022
+1
Yesā¦maybe.
Probably.
Most certainly!!
JR for example.
March 24, 2022
All Sunak demonstrated yesterday was that the CONs are completely detached from the lives of the vast majority. He did nothing to address the cost of living crisis that many are facing. Removing VAT from insulation, solar and heat pumps is pointless when people don’t have the money to buy them in the first place.
But hey, if you vote to be shafted by these CON Artists at the next General Election we might give you 1p off your income tax …. whilst we increase stealth taxes.
March 24, 2022
Weāve been providing council grants and government subsidy for insulation since the 70s, its been saturated, every home that could, wanted or needed insulation has already got it
Middleclass eco-warriors are already buying Solar and Heat-Pumps at exorbitant costsā¦..so why are we subsidising green products to support the rich
March 24, 2022
Agreed Donna. Buying insulation is a no-no for those struggling to eat & heat. Sunak reckoned he didn’t want to cut VAT on energy as it would benefit the wealthy the most. So now he cuts VAT on something the poorest will never afford, ie. no benefit whatsoever to the poorest, but will benefit those with money to spend. How does Sunak’s brain work? Can’t he see his own hypocrisy? Heat pumps are only for the very wealthy, and are also the Emperors new clothes for the majority of UK homes.
March 24, 2022
Exactly
March 24, 2022
+1
March 24, 2022
Shirley, it seems it’s what “mustn’t be mentioned” i.e. the VAT reduction doesn’t apply to Northern Ireland.
One report says ” Until the discrepancy is resolved, the Chancellor said the government would make an appropriate adjustment to the regional grant formula”. Farcical.
March 24, 2022
Well said Shirley.
March 24, 2022
Having seen their forecasts for the previous year so wrong, they are doing their utmost to fulfil their prophecy, by hiking employer’s national insurance.
This tax is levied on UK companies employing British people, and is designed to stifle British business in favour of foreign and imports. From next month, we will have to pay government 15% of whatever pay increases we can pass on to our employees. The global marketplace (outside the UK) will be laughing up its sleeve to see the government handicap UK businesses so much.
What chance to compete in the global marketplace when our own government is busy nobbling its own? Where next for multinationals in redundancies because overseas is cheaper?
Our competition will be so pleased with the Chancellor’s work.
Please scrap this tax if you want to be realistic about your ambition for growth, and let British business prosper.
March 24, 2022
The Chancellor could also have removed the 5% VAT from domestic energy bills, a small but welcome help in view of the rocketing price of energy.
Why didn’t he?
If my bill was Ā£100/month the chancellor would receive Ā£5. If my bill increases to Ā£200/month the Chancellor receives Ā£10 and therein lies the answer. The outdated VAT is a big money winner for the Gov.
They speak of helping us, while doing exactly the opposite.
March 24, 2022
Old Albion
He could afford the 5 pence cut in fuel because he has made an extra 10 pence on VAT with the Price increasing.
Thus he has only given you back less than half of what he has made extra.
March 24, 2022
And don’t forget there’s the 30+% increase in Corporation Tax coming in 2023. That’ll put the price of everything up even further next year, on top of inflation, fuel costs etc. A whole raft of costs hitting the electorate just before the 2024 election. Not sure BoJo has really thought this through properly.
March 24, 2022
Do foreign-owned companies operating in the UK pay Corporation Tax in the UK? They’ll be the only ones left.
March 24, 2022
Eliminate Corporation Tax entirely and put it on to dividends only, with a withholding tax on what gets paid out abroad.
Let UK business retains its profits for investment.
We can’t do that of course, as that will upset the Tories’ mates with all their offshore investments.
March 24, 2022
Anyone willing to wade through the Spring Statement itself will see an interesting chart on page 9. Public sector debt as a percentage of GDP. Back in the 1980s/90s it was around 30%. Today we are a gnats breathe off 100%. By 2026 the OBR forecasts a drop to 80% – won’t happen.
Does anyone stop to ask how this massive debt gets repaid? It will be )and is being) inflated away, meaning savers lose out.
Always staggers me that when asked why he isn’t “doing more” (translation: handing out cash) why Sunak doesn’t reply “where would the money come from”.
March 24, 2022
But Pete, through QE as our host has often mentioned. the government owns almost Ā£900 billion of its own debt.
March 24, 2022
Well that was hardly worth waiting for was it.
The only benefit to me personally is the 5 pence reduction of fuel at the pumps, something, but hardly a great help in the overall scheme of things is it.
I guess it makes sense to make the starting point for NI the same as the personal tax allowance, so that will help all workers a little, but not much else, given the separate NI charge is still being introduced.
We still have VAT and the other green charges on our power bills, something that would have been a REAL help to everyone.
Removal of VAT on some chosen insulation products will help a little for those who have not completed such yet, but it’s all small stuff really.
Nothing off of the cost of installing High performance double/triple or secondary glazing I see.
Lowering of income tax by a penny in 2 years time is just a farce when the Personal Tax allowance limit is frozen.
His statement also shows that the Northern Ireland Protocol has busted the Governments management of the UK as a whole, given he now has to approach the EU for taxation policies.
All in all a rather a pathetic attempt to micro manage a real cost of living crisis for millions.
It was a great opportunity to try and help millions, he failed big time.
March 24, 2022
2.5% increase in NI for NHS backlog and eventually for Social Care? Partially offset for the lower paid to Ā£37K (except for the tax of the job which makes the job more expensive to the employer)
Where in the good Red Book is the increasing costs of accommodating the world who arrive on our doorsteps either by invitation (Ukrainians and Afghanis, EU citizens on benefits invited to stay) or by stealth (dinghy people and visa overstayers including students)?
Choices – Sir John, our public sector spending is made up of a series of mostly misguided choices from subsiding energy to HS2 to Mayors to largesse to immigrants. Your party is as profligate as the rest, that is my money (and my children’s) that you are wasting. Stop I beg of you.
Strip down the size of the public sector (starting with Mayors) and the on demand services provided. This is the great reset we crave.
March 24, 2022
Right thatās it itās time for me to order a heat pump and take advantage of the governmentās wonderful VAT deduction. Hang on though, my gas boiler engineer says thereās no one he knows in our area that fits them and no one qualified to maintain them. The qualification costs Ā£5000 which traditional boiler engineers are not willing to pay. So I think Iāll go and test drive a new electric car instead. Itās time to wean myself off the pleasure I get from buying a new highly efficient petrol car every few years. Thatās got to stop as I need to set an example for all to see.
March 25, 2022
Good luck with that. Shapps sys they are going to increase public charging points by 10 times what we have now – by er-2030, so no rush just yet.
March 24, 2022
More important than taking a penny off income tax, some time in the future, is restoring the value of the threshholds.
March 24, 2022
jam on our bread tomorrow ….good because bread is what a lot of people will be living on.
March 24, 2022
GB trade (but not NI) has crashed more than twice as badly as any other western countryās over the last 2 years. Did we maybe leave a big and successful free trade area?
March 24, 2022
The UK’s exports to the EU are down by Ā£12 bn – but the EU’s exports to us are down by …………. Ā£20 bn. Until we are out of the pandemic, it is too early for you to gloat. Remind me how the EU’s efforts to secure an FTA with the USA are going? They’ve had decades to accomplish what Australia managed inside two years.
March 24, 2022
and the deal with Canada?
March 24, 2022
We have extremely thick fog at the moment!!
We have not seen a fog like this for decades. Canāt see the other side of the road.
Bit odd since the plague āresponseā apparently cut emissions?
The BBC weather forecast (!!!) says that we have bright sunshine.
Forecasts, predictions, goat entrails, runes, wheels of fortune.
The Oracle of Westminster ā¦.lol š
March 24, 2022
It looks like the problem is Boris Johnson who essentially seems to be a big state social democrat, contrary to most of his past excellent journalism. Sunak probably is quite sound, he is certainly well trained. I think Conservative MPs really do need to think about dumping Boris once the Ukraine crisis is past. There is going to be little or nothing to show for Brexit by the next election besides a few gimmicks, and whilst much will be able to be blamed on the pandemic and Russia, that wonāt be enough for voters to resist the blandishments of Labour with their dumb populist calls for ever more spending, even higher public sector costs, windfall taxes etc.
No change no chance.
March 24, 2022
Richard1 first thing a labour coalition would do is set up a referendum to get us back tied into the Customs Union and Single Market, sold out.
March 24, 2022
If the Will Of The People were for that, then in what way could it possibly be a “sell out”?
However, I doubt that they would.
March 24, 2022
They wouldnāt need a referendum for that.
March 25, 2022
There was no constitutionalneed for a referendum to leave the European Union.
Farage said that he would do it if ukip ever got a parliamentary majority in favour, remember?
Stuff whatever might have been the so-called Will Of The People then eh?
March 25, 2022
Please encourage Labour to make rejoining the EU a manifesto commitment NHL.
March 24, 2022
Someone mentioned Sunak should be gone and a “rising star” will hopefully appear. There would be no better replacement than “risen star” Sir John Redwood. What a waste of this man’s talent – not even in the Cabinet. Shocking.
March 25, 2022
He allows criticism of the government on this blog, so that’s probably why he’s out, although he is intensely loyal to the party. They certainly are socialists now, even to the extent of outlawing anti government comments. Thought police next.
March 24, 2022
Perhaps they should take a leaf out of the admirable Nigel Lawsonās book?
Cut taxes and make the country rich. Give workers an incentive.
And never mind the Oppositionās whining!
Man upā¦.cut taxes to the bone!
The Red Wall will love it.
(Almost as much as theyād love the Channel to be defended).
March 24, 2022
High hourly rates are what give workers an incentive.
However, UK companies can’t afford that, as they need to pay the CEO 250 times a shop-floor wage.
March 24, 2022
The picture is dark but indeed it does not have to be made materially and unnecessarily darker by the Treasury’s maladroit, myopic foolery.
March 24, 2022
There was a time, before the ‘green revolution’ when the picture was light
The green revolution is pushing inflation, energy costs, fuel costs, market confidence, social-engineering, higher taxes and restricting freedom of choice
March 24, 2022
Erm, itās Brexit that is doing all of those things.
March 24, 2022
Are you suggesting that Brexit is the Green Revolution…thats quite a leap
March 24, 2022
Erm inflation is happening in Europe and USA
March 24, 2022
Sir John,
Talking of forecasts… Sorry to shoehorn but the weather waits for no man. If you look at the Gridwatch Templar site you will see that from southern Norway to northern Spain the wind has dropped. In the North Sea the turbines fall silent. The PM has said he wants to increase wind energy by a factor of four, forgetting no doubt that four limes very little is very little. At 0830 wind is producing 0.83 GW.
Perhaps you might ask him if there are plans to ration energy to the public, or to the businesses which provide jobs to the public.
Rgds
JF
March 24, 2022
Julian Flood : “Perhaps you might ask him if there are plans to ration energy to the public, or to the businesses which provide jobs to the public.”
Yes, there are such plans in place.
Read the Net Zero Strategy and you will see clearly mentioned ādemand managementā which is a euphemism for energy rationing.
Watch the HoL Industry & Regulators Committee meetings on the subject āOfgem & Net Zeroā and you will see ādemand managementā openly discussed. National Grid at the 02/11/2021 meeting described electricity requiring āvolatile pricingā as a way to flatten demand [prior to rolling blackouts] and admitting that Net Zero is unachievable without smart meters.
March 24, 2022
Original Richard our British Gas smart meter hasn’t been working properly for months now, technical issues.
March 25, 2022
My neighbour had one fitted and it has never worked because there is no signal. It seems they knew it wouldn’t before fitting, but they needed another tick in a government box which is how we are governed these days. We can’t get a mobile phone signal in this village and tv is so poor we have satellite dishes. Not in the Highlands of Scotland or up a mountain in Wales, but 50 miles from the Capital. Third world for some of us at more than first world prices.
March 24, 2022
Note: the Sun is shining.
March 24, 2022
great …just as we turn the heating down and don’t need lighting much, the sun gives our solar panels 3% of what we need.
hallelujah! /sarc
March 24, 2022
Andy :
I notice that as I write [24/03/2022 22:16] the total amount of electricity supplied by wind is 0.52GW (1.48% of demand) out of an installed capacity of 24.6GW.
Fortunately coal is on hand to help out supplying 1.79GW (5.09% of demand).
March 25, 2022
Andy. It’s forecast to rain and snow next week. Reliable or what?
March 25, 2022
Sun shining – that’ll make the turbines spin.
March 24, 2022
Itās a big mistake not to be bullish with the EU regarding VAT in Northern Ireland. Is this VAT going to the EU? This Government comes across as weak, unimaginative, and profligate. They continue to squeeze the middle classes but soon this group will have nothing left to give. Itās time for a new party with fresh ideas that will put the British people first.
March 25, 2022
It’s all part of the plan to make Brexit fail.
March 24, 2022
SJR the OBR needs a counter Office for Positive Economic Growth! They will always overplay the devil’s advocate after New Labour and Gordon Brown’s disastrous tenure as “our greatest chancellor” or rather chancer with zero commercial experience sadly .
The Richi Sunak budget was pathetic after all….
March 24, 2022
If you fail to reduce the yoke of taxation from potential enterprise you cannot expect post Brixit growth.
If you can see the failings in the Treasury, as can we, why cannot the Chancellor. Not dealing with the elephant in the room, fuel cost, is abject failure. If you decide to go nuclear it is ten years away. Fuel costs are at the root of many of the other cost increases so they need to be dealt with yesterday. I saw yesterdays budget as a failure that will ultimately cost the conservatives electorally. The Ā£0.05 cut in fuel duty was a joke, the electoral dangled cut in the basic rate of tax was insulting to the electorate’s intelligence.
Frankly it is time for a right of centre entrepreneurial oriented government, not one made from any of the present incumbents of the House of Commons.
March 24, 2022
agricola
Very good post totally agree
March 24, 2022
I despair. The Chancellor had announced the NHS levy and now, rather than abolish it, he increases the NI threshold. He had increased corporation tax and now, rather than reverse some of the increase, he plans more corporation tax relief for so-called R & D. He had burdened small businesses with Making Tax Digital so now, rather than abolish it, he subsidises small businesses for buying the necessary software.
So: 6 changes where no changes would have had a broadly similar effect. There can only be one explanation: more complexity and legislation so as to create more bureaucracy and jobs for Civil Servants.
March 24, 2022
In how many countries, over what period of history, has printing money led to inflation?
As Albert said, doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results is a sign of insanity. Ergo, the Treasury is insane, or Sunak wants us back with his chums in the EU…
March 24, 2022
Dear Sir John,
I am sick to death of the ‘experts’ in Government. Whether they be in the Treasury, SAGE or elsewhere. They clearly live in their own little universe. Never venturing out into the real world lest they find that their reality is not the same as the rest of us.
They are in large part – being on the Government payroll – immune from the effects of their prognostications. No doubt absolving themselves from all responsibility as to the actions taken by Ministers as a result. Since they are apparently there only to advise.
It’s about time that the game changed and they are held to account for pee poor performance, as they would in any size commercial organisation.
March 24, 2022
You can promise anything for tomorrow today, knowing full well circumstances change and promises ditched.
Triple lock on pensions – a manifesto promise ditched.
Leave UK energy recourse’s either in the ground or in control of Foreign Governments, import as much as possible so the CO2 production is outside the UK and not part of the UK quota – it makes the World a greener place.
A Government dedicated to making the UK resilient, safe and secure, it will ‘Give’ UK taxpayer money to support other regimes while refusing to invest and support the people of the UK. The redistribution of wealth
No one does better or faster than this UK Socialist Government
March 24, 2022
Since my contribution above I have now read those of fellow diarists. It bodes badly for any electoral ambitions you may have in 2024. Only tories of masochistic tendencies will vote for you. It opens the door for Reform should they choose to take it. I frankly hope they do because the electorate cannot accept any more of this governments illiteracy.
Be it the NI Protocol, illegal immigration, incompetence over fuel supply, the state of the NHS, appalling roads, a transport policy that does not exist, abysmally politically motivated education, bottom to top, and the tolerance of a woke agenda out to destroy humour and other accepted norms. Tell me what you are good at before democracy itself is destroyed.
March 24, 2022
I am inclined to agree that the Chancellor had some spare cash. Take petrol, we are supposed to be grateful for 5p/litre duty cut, however he has collected so much extra VAT at 20% on the last 40p rise! Now if he is using the cash for something (reducing the national debt, helping Ukraine etc) else he should have said so.
Politically, it was a bad budget, with the Chancellor pretending to be Santa Claus. Even the Tory papers are critical.
P.S. my free advice to politicians of all parties continues to be, reform the Nimby planning laws for faster economic growth.
March 24, 2022
āIt is disappointing to learn they think they cannot remove these taxes [VAT on green items] for Northern Ireland under the Protocol.
So is it smuggling or VAT fraud if a roll of door sealing tape is brought from Liverpool to Belfast?
And what are the penalties?
March 24, 2022
Northern Ireland was betrayed. A no deal leave would have been far better than the Boris (oven ready one) for the UK and NI.
March 24, 2022
100% betrayed
March 24, 2022
+1 LL. The whole country was betrayed, but NI most of all.
March 24, 2022
“It is a pity the Treasury did not grasp the opportunity to use some of the overshoot of revenue to allow some selective further tax cuts. Choose the right ones and you may anyway end up with more revenue, as they did with Stamp Duty.”
As I said yesterday, the Treasury doesnāt impose taxes or tax rises, politicians do.
This also represents a naive analysis of the Stamp Duty situation. Do you honestly believe that, given how much work is involved in buying, selling and moving house, a cut in Stamp Duty would encourage lots of people who wouldn’t otherwise be interested in moving to do so, especially when the reductions in tax simply ended up being added to the purchase price?
What the temporary reductions in Stamp Duty did was mainly to encourage time shifting of housing transactions (people choosing to move 6 months, a year, 2 years early to do it while the rates were lower, knowing when the changes were coming) rather than encourage many more transactions overall in the long term (more people moving house more often which). It’s much like the example of the top rate tax cut, done in a way which allowed many of those who benefited to engage in (perfeclty legal) tax planning and income shifting.
Both represent entirely rational individual behaviours given an opportunity presented to them by government but, as the HMRC report on the last year of the 50% rate shows (“artificially low” is the phrase they used to describe the amount of income on which the 50p rate was paid due to lots of income shifting and delayed payments to the start of the following tax year), it does not automatically lead to an overall increase in the total tax paid over the longer term.
March 24, 2022
….. and to think I had such great hopes for Mr Sunak as our Chancellor…. a real finance man.
March 24, 2022
do you mean Scrooge?
March 24, 2022
Even on its own terms this budget made no sense. Raising NI but lowering income tax simply shifts taxation disproportionately onto people who are working.
At least he equalised the point at which NI and income tax apply. Maybe a braver chancellor in the future can simply combine the two into a single new income tax paid by all.
March 24, 2022
Roy, the only difference that would make is that pensioners that carry on working will pay 32% tax rather than 21.25%. And any pensioner with a saved for pension would be paying 32% rather than 20% from Ā£12,500. Or do you think that is a good idea?
March 25, 2022
Why do you think it’s a good idea that someone who’s working pays significantly more in direct taxation than a pensioner of the same income level? Are we not all equal?
March 25, 2022
Itās going to happen Peter, probably the next time Labour get elected, the irony is that it will affect their public sector pensioners more than the other half of the population with their p poor private pensions they thought theyād get a tax benefit scrimping and saving for whilst working to attempt to look after themselves in retirement, they have been lied to for years. Iād like to see public sector pension pots capped at the same level private sector pensions are based on the defined benefit purchase pot size.
Iāve had my pension uplifted 7 years already, I was working from the age of 16, never taking a career break, paying for my own after work training courses. I have no doubt my generation will be screwed again in retirement before we get there, with the 49 year old Andyās of this world feeling justified in their mission. I donāt feel my public sector compatriots have been treated the same, I know women still retiring at 60 on fat pensions that werenāt attacked by Brown. MPs will always protect their fellow State dependents.
March 24, 2022
I heard Mr Sunak on R4 this morning and he seemed to think that Covid and World inflationary pressures were to blame! Enough said.
March 24, 2022
Oh yes. And the war!
March 24, 2022
My petrol pump price is now 1p more than what it was pre-spring mini budget yesterday
The only, and I mean the only why to reduce the price of fuel & energy is to produce moreā¦.start exploring and drilling more oil in the north sea, start fracking for gas and open coal mines
Dark days ahead with this Green-Tory government
March 24, 2022
All we hear about is taxation (income).
Why does the Government never cut spending?
Isn’t that the first item you look at when you’re in financial difficulties?
March 24, 2022
Nail firmly on head mate. We are dealing with State vested interests (scum Labour and their vile Marxist unions intent on undermining the UK’s moral base) politicians and bureaucrats (and indeed foreign dependents) who now couldn’t give a shit and they’ll feed off the private sector until it’s rotten and dried
And the Tories? Well, because cutting spending equals vested interest conflict and destructive political headlines and the Tories will also abuse the private to protect their party from the left
These two parties and the SNP cancer will bankrupt the UK..FACT
March 24, 2022
Not so much Kenneth Williams as a Rik Mayall character that time, Dom.
March 24, 2022
Another damning article on the cost of the Ukraine war and its consequences from the Stop these Things Website 25th March 2022. Well worth reading. Some of it is hard to believe what we have controlling us.
Putin blows up NetZero and the green reset
Financial Post
Terence Corcoran
2 March 2022
There can be no greater demonstration of the massive failure ā and the paralyzing contradictions and disconnect ā revealed this week between two branches of the United Nations that allegedly serve to protect and assure peace and prosperity around the world. One branch is the United Nations Security Council, allegedly dedicated to international peace and security. The other UN operation is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was created to āprovide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options.ā….continued
March 24, 2022
I don’t think the rest of the world is getting the idea that we’re broke, up to our necks in debt. People talk about reparations for Jamaica, well there were plenty of slaves in the UK at the same time, people toiling on the land and in factories, children working under cotton looms and worse. The land they live on is no more theirs than it is mine, if we don’t start to fight back against all this soon we are going to be on our knees for the rest of our and our children’s lives. What do these people want landowners to have their land-holdings taking compulsorily off them or for the rest of us regular taxpayers to bail them out all the time?
We imports millions of people arriving on our shores without a penny and house them, educate them and their offspring, it seems no one is grateful for anything. It increases our poverty figures so they want more. It took our families generations to get out of poverty, thousands of years, years of want and toil. Who talks for us in England because this Conservative party doesn’t, Gove stabbed us in the back. Blair stabbed us repeatedly in the back with his student fees for English students only and prescriptions for the English only – then Osborne and now Sunak just carry on.
March 24, 2022
Plus Blair’s dentistry charges has resulted in thousands just getting teeth pulled out now.
March 24, 2022
“They could go ahead and abolish these taxes in Northern Ireland at the same time as the rest of the UK, and could buttress the legal position by putting into the law a clause overriding any unhelpful or errant interpretation of the protocol.”
Hear, hear. This is reminiscent of your recipe for exit, that we did not need to use article 50, merely repeal the 1972 Act.
Can you imagine the antics in the Commons and the Lords when the Government tried to do that? And on the bench? It would be like the IMB and the Borders legislation all over again. The political class cannot abide anything which might appear to assert the national interest.
March 24, 2022
PS Well done getting the Treasury to budge on VAT on green things. It show they do hear you.
March 24, 2022
Why not put a annual tax equivalent to rate of inflation+2%, on borrowing or re-borrowing money from any fractional reserve banks for anything except commercial productive endeavours. This money could then be ring fenced to increase personal allowances. Mutuals could then perhaps make a comeback. Banks could them be allowed to fail.
March 24, 2022
So Nato has never been more united according to Biden. So how come the EU members couldn’t bring themselves to speak to Boris? Was it because they are petulant and childish or because they can’t stand the fact that on our own we can be decisive and make a big difference? Come on Boris. Be big when it comes to energy and self sufficient food supplies for the UK.
March 25, 2022
Because these men are nothing more than bullies, old school bullies that use exclusion, one of the worst forms of bullying, as any sad child will tell you. You can all come to my party but they leave one out, then do nothing but talk about the party what a great time they’re going to have and had in front of the excluded child. These same men will condemn bullies yet they teach this technique to their offspring and on it goes. Popular kids and their followers never condemn it because they’re the ones that do it.
March 25, 2022
He still thinks they are our ‘friends and neighbours’. He’s right about the second bit.
March 25, 2022
My only reservation about voting for Brexit was that, after 40 years being told what to do by Brussels, our civil service couldn’t think for themselves and would not be up to the job. That seems to be exactly what has happened and they have no idea how to get out of the NI disaster or indeed do anything other than the EU way.
Almost every important issue becomes an unresolved mess.
March 25, 2022
The Treasury is a basket case. It would be useful to hear your views in a future post on what should be done to fix that – how can we get suitable people in post? Or better checks and balances before the Treasury forecast becomes accepted as gospel.
The OBR was supposed to do some of this, but it has been a disappointment. Perhaps it simply chooses people from the same pool as the Treasury.