I have been proposing a budget for faster growth and lower inflation. The notes beneath give the outlines of it.
The Prime Minister has three economic aims
ā¢ Get inflation down
ā¢ Promote growth
ā¢ Cut the deficit
These reinforce each other.
ā¢ More growth brings more revenue and lower spending on benefits
ā¢ Falling inflation reduces spending pressures, helps business with costs and lowers the deficit
The budget judgement
ā¢ The OBR forecast Ā£131 bn deficit for 2023/4. Revenues have been better than expected so there is a Ā£20bn improvement available
ā¢ The right kind of tax cuts can promote growth and boost other tax revenues more than the OBR model suggests. The OBR often under forecasts tax revenue.
ā¢ There are spending controls and reductions that can help cut the deficit as taxes are brought down a bit
Inflation is too much money chasing too few goods
ā¢ Our inflation stems from excess money, credit and bond buying by the Bank in 2020-21.
ā¢ Money supply is now falling. The Bank has lurched from far too easy to very tight.
ā¢ Government can help the Bank get inflation down by cutting taxes on expensive energy whilst prices remain high, and by offering tax cuts to the self employed and to businesses to promote more output.
ā¢ The Bank wants to get inflation down by stamping on demand. More
work to boost supply would help.
What the Bank should do next
ā¢ The Bank is independent in in setting short term interest rates. It is likely they have now set them high enough, but they will make that call.
ā¢ The Bank acts as agent of the Treasury in buying and selling bonds, with a full Treasury indemnity for losses
ā¢ The Bank should stop selling bonds at a loss in the market and sending huge bills to the Treasury (Ā£24bn in the first 4 months of this year) Run the portfolio off as and when the bonds are repaid.
Affordable tax cuts for growth
ā¢ The UK has lost 800,000 self-employed since February 2020. Some of this is the result of the 2017 and 2021 changes to IR 35 taxation. It is now difficult for the self-employed to get contracts from companies.
ā¢ The government should restore the pre 2017 tax regime. This should produce a good increase in self-employment, saving money on benefits and leading to extra taxes on incomes form self-employment.
ā¢ Self-employment offers a flexible and fast way to expand capacity in a wide range of goods and services.
Boost small business with a VAT cut
ā¢ Raise the VAT threshold to Ā£250,000 from Ā£85,000. Many small businesses turn down extra work or have closure periods to avoid going over the VAT threshold in any given year.
ā¢ There would be a rapid increase in capacity as small business adjusted to a less onerous regime. There would be offsetting tax gains on taxing employee and business income as a result.
Take 5p a gallon off motor fuels whilst oil prices are high
ā¢ The government will get more revenues from domestic oil and gas production and from sales of energy all the time oil prices rise and stay high.
ā¢ Offer 5p off fuel duty per gallon all the time oil stays above $75 a barrel. Review three monthly.
Suspend 5% VAT on domestic energy bills whilst gas and oil are high
ā¢ As with fuel duty, remove VAT temporarily while oil is above $ 75 a barrel
ā¢ These two measures on energy will help push inflation down, which lowers public sector costs which have to match inflationary rises.
ā¢ They will also help contain business costs
Make a further reduction in Business rates
ā¢ Many businesses which provide a good service by occupying physical property to serve customers are suffering from high and rising business rates.
ā¢ Offer a further reduction in these costs to help business recover from the covid and interest rate shocks that have damaged output and profits.
Tackle the public sector productivity collapse
ā¢ ONS figures show public sector productivity is down 7.5% in the 3
years 2020 to 2022. This is a Ā£30bn hit to budgets, raising costs by
that amount to produce the same output. This is on top of large
money increases in spending to handle inflation.
ā¢ Ministers need to work with public sector senior managers to restore the 2019 levels as soon as possible, freeing money for other purposes.
Cut the benefits bill by helping more people into better paid work
ā¢ The measures to boost self-employment and small business will help
reduce welfare costs
ā¢ Switching more employment by helping people already settled here
into jobs instead of increasing the numbers of legal migrants will also
cut costs, both by reducing benefit demands and cutting the extra
costs of providing homes, surgeries, school places for additional
arrivals
Overall budget judgement
ā¢ The Treasury seems to think IR 35 changes would cost Ā£2bn, the fuel duty change Ā£2.6bn and VAT change Ā£4 bn. Business rates could add another Ā£5bn
ā¢ This is less than the current Ā£20 bn increase in revenues/lower deficit experienced. It is also balanced by productivity restoration in the public sector. If only one third of the recent losses were regained in the first year that covers two thirds of this package.
ā¢ The return to work and self-employment changes would also generate spending savings.
ā¢ Any success in cutting inflation faster would also generate savings on the costs of government debt, given the way they account for Index linked
October 29, 2023
Always interesting to read the opposition budget statement, Sir John, thank you. We see how things could be done differently, if a Conservative government was in power.
There would be quite a few practical problems in carrying it out, though. For example, you say Ministers should ‘work with’ public sector managers to improve productivity. Public sector managers are are obviously pretty satisfied with how things are, otherwise they would improve the position themselves. You may have noticed what happened the last time a Minister tried to get things done his way: he was accused of ‘bullying’ and forced to resign as Deputy PM. Ministers doing as you propose would need to be supported by a Prime Minister with backbone.
October 29, 2023
indeed.
Sensible proposals but also ditch Net Zero, Ditch HS2 in full, get fracking, drilling and mining, halve the size of the parasitic state, have a bonfire of red tape, stop giving people dangerous Covid vaccines, get real and fair competition between state and private competition in healthcare, energy, education, broadcasting, transport, bankingā¦without market rigging. Kill the soft loans for the millions of worthless degrees.
Alas most Tory MPs are climate alarmist, globalist, socialists or Libdims as is the causer of our most of out inflation and economic problems one Rishi Sunak. They even want the WHO to run much of out healthcare policy and be allowed to mandate vaccines for us.
October 29, 2023
I see that electric car sales are struggling (stuck in porridge it seems) as more and more people realise (and tell each other) that they are far more expensive (mainly in finance and depreciation costs), inconvenient, far more limited in range and with slow charge issues, short-lived expensive batteries, 30% heavier thus more tyre and road wear, have serious fire (putting out of) issues, expensive to insure (as so v. easily written off even in minor shunts), usually need expensive charge points at your home (not good if you live in a 5th floor flat), not good going through fiords or flood water either. Plus some ferry companies refusing them and many not insuring them.
Plus they cause more CO2 & not less than keeping your old car. This even if charged entirely on lower carbon electricity. But they will not be as we have none spare anyway. The pushing of EV cars (with tax payer subsidies and tax breaks) with the currency battery tech. is even more moronic than HS2, the Covid Lockdowns or the net harm (unsafe and ineffective) Covid vaccines (which were even pushed into younger people and even people who had had Covid already – surely criminal negligence?
Not that a bit more CO2 is really a serious climate problem anyway.
October 29, 2023
Everybody’s car insurance will go up as irrespective of who causes a crash an electric car is likely to be written off, but heyho the government will get more revenue through insurance tax.
October 29, 2023
To a small degree they will all go up, but if an electric car collides then at least one car involved will be electric. If a petrol or diesel car crashes then only a rather small chance the other car will be electric, so electric car insurance will clearly go up far more. Many companies not insuring EVs already.
October 29, 2023
Clough
Second Paragraph spot on, no incentive to do any better, great pension scheme, great sick pay, good holiday entitlement.
Meanwhile the self employed hammered by IR35 and virtually ignored or refused help during Covid. So no wonder their numbers are down.
October 29, 2023
Time for the 80% who work in the private sector to rebel and just refuse to carry the 20%, largely parasitic, bloated and misdirected state sector any more.
October 29, 2023
How crazy is our tax code to allow a full state pension to become taxed? Hunt/Sunak stealth tax (not increasing the tax thresholds) should be addressed.
Taking the lowest paid out of income tax would help those needing it most and reduce cost of raising tax.
October 29, 2023
P W
Indeed they suggest the minimum wage (as decreed by Government) is the necessary minimum income to live/exist.
The full State Pension is considerably lower than the minimum wage, so no wonder so many struggle to survive properly, and the cost of Social Service provision is increasing.
My Council Tax, Heat, Light, Power, Water and house insurance takes up 70% of my full State Pension.
Goodness knows what I would do if I had rent or an extended mortgage to pay.
Good job I made my own provision for old age during my working years, but of course invested income is also taxed as well as my State pension, and almost everything else you buy, other than some foods.
Then when eventually the grim reaper comes, the family gets robbed again with Inheritance tax !
October 29, 2023
@Clough; To be fair, our hosts comment can be read two ways, the way you have, or that our host is suggesting Ministers should allow Civil Service managers to improve productivity!
A Civil Servant manager has to obey the rules set by their seniors (the elected Minister, the elected Councillor), just as in industry where line managers have to implement decisions made in the boardroom, even though they might disagree, know better…
October 29, 2023
“A Civil Servant manager has to obey the rules set by his elected Minister,”
Yes Minister.
October 30, 2023
Quite.
October 30, 2023
@John Hatfield; Read my comment again, then point out were either ‘Sir Humphrey’ or ‘Bernard’ broke the rules…
Wasn’t “Yes minister” a favorite of Margret Thatcher?
October 29, 2023
VAT is an EU imposed tax. We are no longer in the EU. Start a program of removing/reducing VAT across the board. Not temporary minor tweaks.
October 29, 2023
They can’t – because of the NI sell-out. They won’t eliminate VAT in rUK because it would highlight the betrayal.
October 29, 2023
@Donna – People donāt recognise the sell out of NI, the sell out of UK fisheries by our Parliament, is at the core of why this Con-Socialist Government along with their āBlobā compatriots fail those that democratically elected empowered and pay them, are all seen as part of a dishonest cabal. They will do anything to remain under the yoke of the unelected and unaccountable
October 29, 2023
Northern Ireland is probably exiting the United Kingdom.āThe Good Friday agreement committed to a referendum in NI and RoI if it was thought unification could win.āSince then, predictable migration from RoI to NI plus the immigrants higher birth rate has shifted the balance.āIt will presumably keep shifting.āOnly if voters thought it better to be free of the EU but suffer a high Corporation Tax would they vote for the Union to continue.
Meanwhile, we curtail our Brexit opportunities on a lost cause.
October 29, 2023
Well said Albion, I have always said that! Get rid of the stigma of having been conned! Call the tax anything, maybe back to purchce tax but get rid! āValue added Taxā a typical nonsense, it adds no value.
Lets get rid of all eu laws and go our own way.
October 29, 2023
āLets get rid of all eu laws and go our own way.ā
Sunak and Starmer have the reverse agenda as we saw with the appalling Windsor Accord and the scrapping of the EU red tape removal proposals. Plus sticking with the scientific and economic insanity of net zero.
October 29, 2023
@Old Albion – we are still tied to the EU by the dishonesty of the Government and Parliament
October 29, 2023
Will never happen. It produces north of 160 billion for them to waste. Too good an opportunity to rook the public even though it would boost the economy by giving people more money to spend on worthwhile things, not hare-brained schemes dreamt up by poor quality politicians. They don’t really care much about the economy unless it is in their electoral interests. They are now scrabbling around for any old headline however ludicrous like trying to pretend to be the ‘motorists friend’. Cutting VAT would be an instant winner, but the Treasury would never swallow that. The best hope is next spring when Hunt will suddenly find money down the back of the sofa to give a small tax cut and pretend he is a tax cutting Chancellor – until after the next GE when it will be business as usual whoever wins.
October 29, 2023
All good ideas, I wonder whether Messrs Sunak and Hunt and other treasury ministers read this blog? I fear the blob would have a long list of objections to frighten them off trying any of it. The blob scents a Labour victory now, and will be likely to fight to prevent any threat to that. a growth-oriented budget like this would be such a threat to Labour.
Reply They have been sent copies
October 29, 2023
Reply-Reply
Thanks for making the effort yet again JR, but I wonder if they will even bother to read it, such is their insistence that they know better.
October 29, 2023
I donāt think Hunt is the decision maker just the figurehead willing to bend. Before the none-election of Rishi he was campaigning for lower corporation tax, but he still went along once in place and put a massive increase in 19% to 25% (seems it was agreed by Rishi with his pals in the big global meetings he and Starmer prefer, rather than dealing with British plebs).
October 29, 2023
Many Conservatives of the green persuasion were hoping that Sunak’s highly controversial decision to cancel HS2 would free up money desperately needed for investment in the national electricity grid, additional public chargers, green hydrogen, more onshore and offshore renewable infrastructure etc. Hunt says not so, for fiscal reasons, even tho onshore renewable energy is far cheaper than fossil fuels – and offers us more energy security
Sunak, Hunt and Shapps’ decisions to provide at least Ā£25bn in tax breaks and pure subsidy for Rosebank and big oil’s carbon capture and storage scams should be revisited. To take the EV revolution forward, we need this money invested in upgrades to the electricity grid, more charging points – especialy in rural areas – and support for those who wish to install EV chargers on their driveways. Labour are winning many votes with their Green Plan
The government is still in favour of hydrogen gas boilers for heating, even though the technical infrastructure experts are against. The gas boiler installation industry notes that current condensing boilers can easily burn 30% green hydrogen injected into the gas, without the need for any adjustment. That may be an acceptable compromise.
Reply You do misrepresent this. Rosebank will make a bog contribution to tax revenues with the double Corp Tax rate on it and the oil taxes
October 29, 2023
” even though onshore renewable energy is far cheaper than fossil fuels ā and offers us more energy security”
Wrong on both accounts.
October 29, 2023
Dream on John. You know the two closet limp dumbs won’t do any of that. It’s not in the WEF playbook.
You got rid of the only tory from the past 14 years and now your finished.
October 29, 2023
It’s a no brainer! All your proposals are correct & are obvious to anyone with a tad of business acumen.
So, why is the treasury, the Government, the BoE & OBR doing the exact opposite? Are these people deliberately destroying the UK & if so why?
This ineptness I would expect from a Labour Government?
Or is this happening because we now have an illegitimate Tory Remainer Government? Who is punishing the majority for stopping their EU gravy train??? Just a thought?
October 29, 2023
@Jude – Sir John comes over as a Conservative, but the Conservative Government, the Treasury, the BoE and even the Conservative created OBR are all control freak Socialists all marching to an agenda set by those outside the UK.
October 29, 2023
Politicians do the bidding of those in charge and then get rewarded with lucrative public speaking engagements and places on the board of directors. It’s all one big gravy train. Those working for unelected global entities like the UN and IMF don’t even pay taxes. Meanwhile those of us working hard get taxed at the highest ever level.
October 29, 2023
It was blindingly obvious that HS2 was mad from the outset yet still fifteen years later they are still pissing money down the drain on it. Also net zero, the worthless degrees circa 75% of them, the road blocking, the renewable and EV subsidies, the net Covid harm vaccinations, carbon capture, Covid lockdownsā¦ to anyone sensible but it is driven by money, stupidity and power – not sense.
October 29, 2023
As for “The Bank should stop selling bonds at a loss in the market…” a few days ago I reminded my own MP that I await a response, my having earlier forwarded a copy of your 23, September diary on this topic and asking that the matter be taken up.
The Bank fails still to explain its antics and the Chancellor funds the losses without demur. Shameful!
October 29, 2023
F 57
May I venture to suggest more than half of our politicians are absolutely and utterly clueless about finance, hence the reason the Country is in dire financial trouble.
We are fortunate that our host is one of the few that really not only understands it, but can actually explain it in simple terms.
October 29, 2023
I see some reporting that Sunak is wisely resisting the temptation to go to the country in the spring. Good – he needs two Autumn Statements to set out his economic and fiscal stall. Both need to make progress along the lines of your helpful list.
P.S. Losing by-elections where the majority being defended was ca. 20k has evidently concentrated his mind.
October 29, 2023
@Sea_Warrior – I would reason that after 14 years of promises and failure to deliver on them, even with one of the largest majorities the party has ever seen, another Statement would just be another promised not kept
October 29, 2023
more jam tomorrow? – but sadly there is no low-hanging fruit to make it with.
Bread and marg….possibly tasteless gruel. What an outlook.
October 29, 2023
Bad as things are at present, you show by your budget that they do not have to stay that way. When Chancellor Hunt tells us soon that they do we shall know better.
October 29, 2023
In other words, Liz Truss was right.
However, since the wrong person is Prime Minister; the wrong person is Chancellor and far too many “wrong people” are Conservative MPs the Not-a-Conservative Party won’t produce a conservative budget and will be hammered at the next election.
I wonder what the Not-a-Conservative-Party – the party of mass, uncontrolled immigration and shipping-in criminal migrants – thinks it will be able to do to control the hordes of Hamas supporters and/or sympathisers who appear to have free rein to terrorise the Jewish community? The Police obviously aren’t going to uphold the law …. at least, not when it applies to certain “minorities” who seem to get a free pass compared to the rest of us.
October 29, 2023
@Donna +1
October 29, 2023
That Donna is because we have a parliament and police service led by cowards.
They have done nothing to stop the rape of white young girls or the murder of the public in our streets. It has been allowed to go quiet but still rages on
They have a situation they ( the cowards) will not control.
We have lost! My father who fought for our freedom in WW2 turns in his grave , disgusting!
October 29, 2023
Regrettably wars are not fought for freedom or any other like concept. They are fought to preserve the freedom of action of the rulers of the respective countries to do exactly what they want..as we can see.
October 29, 2023
Indeed. If we had a conservative Government the things Sir John would have been implemented already, years ago. However, we don’t. We have a high taxing, mass immigration, minority priority Government, net zero zealots, high energy costs exporting industry, who think its right to pay welfare in all its forms for ever, without limit to anyone who chip’s up and generations of feckless layabouts who know they are entitled to this lifestyle without time limit or sanction on the backs and efforts of the 46%. The Westminster bubble see and support this. Why have they imported over 10 million from around the world where a growing minority cause us, the English taxpayer, nothing but trouble? You will go to the back of the queue for health, dentistry, housing, education, and all other public services whilst your culture and heritage are destroyed….. and you’ll be prosecuted for an ism of some description, so just pay and be quiet. Just go Sir John and take the fake conservatives with you. Starmer, then REFORM.
October 29, 2023
As most of us have been saying for years – you should be Chancellor.
October 29, 2023
Absolutely.
October 29, 2023
Surely better for the OBR to under forecast tax revenue than to over forecast?
The UK needs more genuine self-employment, not disguised employment that pretends to use self-employed contractors. IR35 needs to be reformed, not abolished.
“Inflation is too much money chasing too few goods”
Surely quite the opposite, other than property sales and rarities. I seem to recall there being no shortage of goods in the shops, warehouses, at the factory gates, back in the mid to late 1970s. The problem was their cost out-paced the available money, thus domestically the annual trade union wage demands were inflated to try to retain their members previous standards of living, then having bullied the employers to get their demands, prices increased again, and the inflation cycle started over again. It was those high factory gate prices that also affected our exports.
In 2023 our biggest problem is to much debt, retail credit (buy now, pay later) needs to be rained in, it is the equivalent to the excessive wage claims of the 1970s, kicking the inflation can down the road. Perhaps we just need a general VAT cut, or did the short term cut (15 from 17.5%) between 2007-10 cause more problems than it solved.
A problem with helping the self employed sole-trader, those who are *not* VAT registered. They pay 20% VAT on their B2B purchases, some tax can be claimed back via self assessment returns, but can a cumbersome back-office task to claim it all back. I’m sure HMRC could come up with a better solution if they really wanted to, or were forced to.
October 29, 2023
Having to claim back tax paid reveals that the method of collection is faulty. Tax is needlessly and wastefully complicated. Simple efficiency would be better, yet the process continually adds further entanglement with muddles, created by idiots at the Treasury.
October 29, 2023
If we want more and better jobs, make employing people more attractive.
Start be removing the barriers put up to dissuade businesses becoming employers.
October 29, 2023
Itās much too late for that Dave, Labour are promising more costs on new business and small business and the Tories are the other side of the same bottom.
Government has taken over pay settlements with a 10% increase to the NLW last April (when Labour want Ā£15 what will the teacher want per hour, the nurse, the doctor, the consultant? Differentials will have to be maintained, oh but that doesnāt affect inflation no siree) doubling the minimum wage wasnāt enough weāre told people are poorer than ever, we are importing poverty and then saying why are people still poor š¤·āāļø, government decides holiday entitlements, workplace pension 3% and employers national insurance costs 13.8% with no reduction at the higher earnings or at retirement age, business has to cover 100% statutory sick pay + statutory sick holiday so if someone is off for a year you still have to pay 28 days holiday as though they were in at their full usual salary inc overtime, even as you are paying their cover hire 28 days holidays pay, for a very small business itās an impossible risk to insure against, you can have two go off at the same time out of five and Labour are promising more that theyāre lining business up to pay for so they can take the credit.
October 29, 2023
I am all for reducing the tax burden that is inflicted upon the British people, now at its highesst since WW2. However Sunakās government was responsible for the biggest income tax rise for decades – by his stealth tax move freezing income tax thresholds, that will raise at least Ā£40bn a year by 2027
Tinkering with tax rates will do little to boost growth. Reducing inflation – which was caused by the quadrupling of the price of gas before the Russian invasion of Ukraine – requires cheaper energy. Producing more electricity using renewable resources is the way to do this. It is pointless giving the oil industry more N Sea licences as there is no more oil or gas left to economically extract and we cannot afford the subsidies.
October 29, 2023
So called renewable energy isn’t cheaper, it’s more expensive. It only appears to be viable because it is heavily subsidised. However, the subsidies are no longer considered efficient, which is why no company made a bid for the last round of licenses. And it requires back-up from reliable sources of energy, so we have to pay twice.
There is nothing cheap about the windmills.
October 29, 2023
Motorway Service stations using diesel generators to charge electric cars!!Govt. Policy for STOR is exactly the same!!
October 29, 2023
Total insanity in economic, scientific and engineering terms as we tend to expect from government.
October 29, 2023
I have a feeling that now cheap money is no longer available, that renewables are far less attractive to investors. Whilst the ‘input’ energy may be ‘free’ (e.g. the wind or sun) renewables require large up front capital investment and on that basis are apparently three to four times more capital intensive than the equivalent gas-fired power to build. Perhaps that is why there were no takers at the recent Government auction?
A bit like EVs vs ICE really. An EV costs more to build and therefore takes longer to pay for itself in fuel savings (and completely ignoring any difference in fuel tax of course). This is going to cause ructions in the car industry, with Volkswagon probably already in deep trouble – and just as our UK (ICE) car industry starts to hit it’s stride again….
October 29, 2023
And when the government offers licences for N. Sea windfarms, SG, it also gets no takers, as they are just uneconomical without subsidies that as you say we cannot afford. The difference with oil and gas exploration being that we don’t in fact subsidise it. You may be thinking of the ‘deduction loophole’ on the fossil fuel windfall tax. This tax wasn’t levied on wind farms, of course, and can’t be, because they aren’t profitable and never will be, when their true costs are accounted for.
October 29, 2023
They raised the national insurance threshold from Ā£9750 to Ā£12,570. Itās not enough but it did make up the freezing for people earning less than Ā£35,000. the fact theyāre not reminding people of this saving makes me wonder why. Approx Ā£360 saving per year for the lower paid.
October 29, 2023
a-tracy
Problem is whilst he gives a little with one hand, he takes ever more with the other, to such an extent that most of us are worse off.
Freezing the personal allowance is a big tax take, likewise taxing Investment/savings income, good grief millions are now paying tax on the State Pension, so he even gets some of that increase back !
No wonder we need more people working in HMRC where a reported 10,000,000 calls go unanswered in a year !
Tax, Benefits, Social Care now far too complicated and expensive to manage.
October 29, 2023
@Berkshire Alan; “Freezing the personal allowance is a big tax take, likewise taxing Investment/savings income, good grief millions are now paying tax on the State Pension ..//..”
During the 2010 General Election when Cameron and Osborne called it “Austerity”, most of the commentators to this site cheered; pay the debt down, don’t leave the debt to our children or grandchildren they said, now when many of the same commentators are feeling the pain too they don’t like it!
Was “Austerity” a lie, the National Debt didn’t matter, or perhaps there has always been a less painful way of paying it off?…
October 30, 2023
I agree, Alan, but people have to pay back for all the covid losses. The young families can’t afford any more, they have been hammered with frozen personal allowances, higher mortgages now, a 9% graduate tax for half of them. When they got rid of childminders with all the legislation and rules, childcare costs are so high.
We have been ultra generous in taking in thousands and thousands of people who arrive with very little, adding to our UK poverty rates. Some areas of London have under 20% of white British people left in them, and I wonder what % of affordable and social housing is being allocated to white British people and whether the councils are doing a purposeful demographic change.
October 31, 2023
@a-tracy; Let me try again…
Hard timers hit us all. Life is a mater of choices, no one has to take out a higher education loan (there are cheaper alternatives to achieve the many of the same goals), people who never exceed their personal tax allowances face frozen or reduced incomes too, why should parents who make correct choices subsidize those who can not – those whose ‘Lifestyle’ means wanting it all and expecting others to fund it. Tax cuts & tax breaks are the flip side of the social security handout, same coin, just a different image. I thought ‘real Conservatives’ believed in giving a hand-up, not a hand-out?
Your second paragraph probably says more about you than anyone else.
October 31, 2023
Oh go away jerry, my comment was specifically addressed to Alan, I wasnāt talking to you and your regular nasty little comments just become tiresome and I wonāt be responding to your little wind ups.
November 1, 2023
@a-tracy; Whatever …and take your own advice, once again your logic fails, given Sakara wasn’t talking to you, s/he was commenting to our host, but that didn’t stop you chipping in! š³
October 29, 2023
but not because they wanted too – a result of conceding to Liberals co-operation, and a good thing it was.
October 30, 2023
In 2010, the Lib Dems got 57 MPs, and there were 306 Tories.
2010/11 Under 65’s Ā£6475, 65-74 years Ā£9490, 75+ Ā£9640.
At the dissolution of Parliament in 2015, the personal allowance was Ā£10,600;
the higher pension rate had been reduced to Ā£60 more in 2010, Ā£10,660 over 65s.
The following Tory governments raised it to Ā£12,500 by 2019/20, with just one more increase during COVID-19 to Ā£12,570 in April 2020 (when inflation was 1.53%), and it has stayed there since.
In 2021 UK inflation rate was 2.52% (12887)
In 2022 UK inflation rate was 7.92% (13908)
In 2023, they are predicting inflation to be 6.8% (14854) and reducing in 2024.
If 2023 PA was Ā£15000, some people would be happier, and it would lift more pensioners out of tax. People working part-time to look after children should be able to transfer their unused PA to their partner if they don’t claim top-up UC to fill the earnings drop.
But.. we have got to pay back the covid furlough, the self-employed income support schemes (SEISS), the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, the covid recovery loan scheme [3 Mar 2021 ā You need to show that your business: is viable; is not in difficulty loans from 2021 to 2023].
Also when it was increased leftwing think-tanks didn’t like it; it would take people working 40 hours per week on the NMW out of tax they were worried about the richest being better off too so the government held back the upper personal allowance putting more people into the 40% tax band.
October 29, 2023
No inflation was caused mainly by devaluing Ā£1 by about 30% in three years using QE, mainly while Sunak was Chancellor and the pointless lockdowns and tax, borrow, print and piss down policies of Sunak, Hammond, Javid, Osborneā¦ Also by the mad net zero agenda pushing up energy costs artificially.
Not just income tax thresholds frozen either but IHT, VAT, CGT(and no indexation either). Taxes on money you have not even made.
October 29, 2023
SG : āProducing more electricity using renewable resources is the way to do this [make energy cheaper]. It is pointless giving the oil industry more N Sea licences as there is no more oil or gas left to economically extract and we cannot afford the subsidies.ā
I do not understand your persistent attacks on the oil and gas industries. Renewables, with their chaotic intermittency, would not exist at all without hydrocarbon fuels providing grid stability and back-up for when the wind isnāt blowing and the sun isnāt shining. You should be welcoming the new North Sea licences.
Furthermore there is no āsubsidyā for hydrocarbon energy, if fact it is more highly taxed than other industries. The āsubsidyā to which you refer is simply a calculation of the lack of additional carbon taxes one anti CO2 organisation thinks should be put in place on hydrocarbon energy.
There is no plan for grid-scale storage because it is prohibitively expensive to be provided by increasing renewables, even more so now that the offshore wind industry this week requested a CfD price increase of up to 100% in order to make bids for future projects, having made no bids for the last (AR5).
If reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions is the goal then nuclear will be far cheaper, more reliable and secure than intermittent renewables supplied by China, a state described by our security services as āhostileā.
October 29, 2023
+1
October 29, 2023
@SG; “I am all for reducing the tax burden that is inflicted upon the British people, now at its highesst since WW2”
We also have the highest national debt since WW2, and with no Marshall Plan bailout. Much of the debt due to the 2007/9 banking, credit and investments crisis. We need to learn there is no magic money tree, there never has been, whatever Conservatives suggested back in the 1980s, only hard, often physical, work that makes physical items.
“Producing more electricity using renewable resources is the way to do this.
Not it is not, one of the biggest causes of inflation prior to the invasion of Ukraine was the cost of subsidizing renewable energy, and indeed our over reliance on oil and gas. I have no other investment in the game, other than what I pay as an end user, but your near constant mono-dialog on so called renewables makes me ask, do you?
October 29, 2023
To make this happen first you have to win the narrative that public sector home working productivity is down.
There is too much vested interest from middle class private sector home workers so this will be difficult.
Gas and electricity prices should be coming down and public sector productivity should be going up. This reduces the need for spending increases so means that you can target tax cuts as you have identified.
But as Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng discovered, first you have to win the narrative.
The Kwarteng statement was received really well in the house I recall but lost heavily in the media.
October 29, 2023
Much of what the state does does positive harm like net zero, road blocking, enforcing daft red tape, bonkers defence spending can we kill this first?
October 29, 2023
The media is not the people. Kwarteng and Truss had the right idea but were not experienced and sophisticated enough to fight the blob.
JR proved decades ago that his is their superior. He would have prevailed. So Trussās failure is Trussās fault – the very first attribute a PM needs is the ability to choose which brain to pick.
October 29, 2023
@NS; “There is too much vested interest from middle class private sector home workers so this will be difficult.”
I would suggest near impossible, if you include cost conscious building managers who see massive savings in the cost of their real estate contracts. Nor is WFH new, I know for a fact that the Dept. for Health, via NHS Trusts, were using WFH in 2001, it being cheaper to set some back-office workers with a secure internet link and home office in a spare bedroom, even loft space – that was up to the individual.
The right-wings dislike of WFH is illogical, perhaps too much vested interest from the commercial Landlord class, ho-hum…
October 30, 2023
Work from home is a tool not a default position @jerry
Writing opposition off a commercial real estate interest is crass and as bad a using -ist or -phobia.
You are better than that.
October 30, 2023
@NS; My (whimsical) comment about the “commercial Landlord class” was in response to your own comment about the ‘middle class private sector’, of whom my father was one, who often worked from home since the 1950s, when he was not at his City of London office or out meeting clients.
The reality is though, if less office space is going to be needed there ARE going to be commercial Landlord in a pickle (UBR really does need to be reformed….), and that might only get worse with AI, no wonder some do not want to admit the future is real and here already.
October 29, 2023
Lots of commendable ideas.
Tax has been maximised from the taxpayers point of view and it is doing business no favours, therefore the exchequer can look forward to zero benefit from the current situation.
Add to this the government have maxed out on spending tax revenue. They have been using the bond (gilts) market to borrow way above tax revenue to pay for all their shopping list items that tax will no longer cover. Possibly OK when interest rates hardly existed, but now with higher interest rates they are over committed. Joe Bloggs in extremis would be forced to downsize. Politicians do not know the meaning of the word, because they are spending other peoples money. So SJR however many commendable ideas you have for shuffeling the deckchairs on the Titanic, it is cosmetic.
We need ideas for government spending LESS. This means doing LESS. Get back to your core purpose if you can remember what that was supposed to be. If you fail to do this, those of enterprise, the only real answer to boosting tax revenue, will take their talents elsewhere and you will be left sitting on a festering heap of woke.
October 29, 2023
Yes, with even 10 year US bonds hitting 5% the days of printing money are clearly over, although no one seems to have told Biden this.
Any small business owner will tell you that when push comes to shove, it is much easier (e.g. predictable) to cut expense than to try and grow income. This simplest way to cut expense is obviously through headcount and there is always fat to trim (at least in the first round). Perhaps ‘Time in Office’ could be given equal weighting to ‘Time Served’ when the cull happens? š
October 29, 2023
10% of ALL Government spending is now DEBT INTEREST payments. Stop spending. We the 46% can’t afford you. Live within our means. Cut welfare, the state and stop importing people at Ā£ 200000 net costs each. We don’t need any more minimum wage workers. A flight ticket is cheaper than 4* Hotels. Action this day. No foreign aid to any Country refusing return of its own citizens. Grow some balls and act not talk.
October 29, 2023
Not much chance of increasing the VAT threshold to Ā£250,000. The current amount of Ā£85,000, plus a similar amount for the bank guarantee scheme, is equal to ā¬100,000 and we mustn’t diverge from the EU, must we?
October 29, 2023
Correct. Across a whole range of issues Sunak has demonstrated that he doesnāt want to diverge from the EU at all even when it means him breaking manifesto promises like banning the export of live animals.
October 29, 2023
I donāt believe Hunt has any intention of āgoing for growth ā. He is only capable of āsteading the shipā whatever he says. Hunt could have done so much when he was health secretary but itās not in his nature to be radical in the slightest. The staff in the Treasury have there own ideas and Hunt has just taken the easy way out and gone along with them. Nothing will change.
October 29, 2023
Nothing will change …. except if the rumours are correct, we will be relieved of Hunt’s presence in the House of Commons at the next election and he won’t be allowing the electorate to make the decision. No doubt he’ll pop up in the House of Frauds, for a lifetime of sucking on the taxpayer teat.
October 29, 2023
Civil Serpents are in charge, not the Tory uni Party.
October 29, 2023
Some hope expecting a 5+5% cut in VAT and road fuel taxes, not from our anti motorist Whitehall establishment.
I’ll believe the PMs wish for credible green polices when he evicts the Eco and Net-zero zealots from squatting within MAFF, Transport and Energy, thus allows our farmers to farm again, our hauliers to haul again, the power industry to use whatever technology guarantees the UK is energy independent.
There should be an Environment Department. but it should mostly be advisory, has there ever been a farmer who did not care for the countryside, to claim other wise is like suggesting carpenters use their wood chisels to carve stone! Defra is the result of a eco-worriers land-grab after the 2000/1 Foot & Mouth outbreak, a mistaken conglomerate of a governmental Ministry.
October 29, 2023
Sir John, My first move would be to bring back insurance stamps for unemployment.
A minimum of two years stamps to earn six moths of benifit. Four years stamps gets one a 12 month period. When that 12 month period is over no more benefit as we must have a productive population.
Thats what is as in the sixties and our country was happy. The habit of Sunack announcing more billions thrown away must also stop, we cannot afford to feed the world!
October 29, 2023
Re the costs. Maybe the Treasury should reflect on Ā£9 billion wasted on unusable PPE. Ā£5/10 billion lost on Covid loans through lack of any sensible diligence, the Minister resigned when they werenāt interested in seriously recovering.
A shadowy department giving umpteen billions ( a hidden scandal) to Local Authorities without diligence, to āinvestā in property schemes etc in which they had no expertise resulting in them now becoming bankrupt, a south of London authority borrowed close to Ā£2 billion on an income of Ā£20 million.
Also letās not forget HS2 or umpteen defence contracts up the Swanee. Money shovelled to the NHS, no improvement required.
People employed from Ministers down incompetent and yet in a few days we will get the teeth sucking, cringeworthy justifications yet again about how they are doing the right thing and we must suffer gratefully.
Hunt/Sunak and Civil Servants etc are the only people who think it is acceptable for us to pay more money for less service.
Private sector they wouldāve bankrupt, they are almost achieving the impossible, bankrupting the whole country/
October 29, 2023
Yes – all very sensible actions that real Tories should have taken already.
The question is why haven’t they done these things? Instead they have turned economics on it’s head and imposed a perverted version of labour economics.
Why do we have a Chancellor that deliberately ignores history, only to make up policies that have no foundation in reality?
October 29, 2023
Suggested additions:
1 Make National Insurance pro rata with the amount of the tax year you are actually in the UK, make tax allowance pro rata with the amount of the tax year you are in the UK. So that foreigners cannot come here for 6 months and effectively get reduced tax rates.
2 Increase the price of work visas, especially intra company transfer visas. Enforce the original intent to make them only available to workers with genuinely unique knowledge to that business, and stop the widespread use to bring in generic grads undercutting locals.
3 All expenses paid to foreign nationals to be taxed exactly the same as they would be for a Brit working far from home within the UK. No more extra tax free amounts allowed just because you are here from abroad.
4 Special punitive taxes for any organisation or person systematically moving British intellectual property abroad.
5 Tackle complex corporate structures which allow profits earned in the UK to be moved along the corporate chain and only become liable in tax havens where far lower taxes apply.
6 Tax incentives to hire and train locals versus imported foreign workers.
October 29, 2023
Iain, is that 1. for the self employed because PAYE is monthly, in fact it is something people moan about because it isnāt cumulative like tax.
October 29, 2023
I am thinking mainly of the foreign workers of the big outsourcers, here on work visas, yes on PAYE, but often cycled here to do 6 months of one tax year, and 6 months of the next, and able to claim big refunds due to their tax allowance being spread over 6 rather than 12 months. That’s the simple version of part of this wheeze, but there are big sophisticated operations to minimize tax over many workers.
October 30, 2023
I hadn’t realised that Iain.
October 29, 2023
Sir John
There is a contradiction there, your leader our 2 Chancellors believe and practice that if they cause cost to rise their wont be price increases and therefore inflation wont rise. They also believe that if they curb UK enterprise and industry and encourage imports, reducing UK ability to earn and pay its way, things will get better.
Sir John, you are flogging a dead horse, the Conservative Party has given up conservatism and embraced Socialism. They this Conservative Government and the Party are resigned to creating failure of the UK.
October 29, 2023
A Conservative MP after the results of the recent bye-election hit the media saying that the Party must make āpromisesā in their next election manifesto. Implying that promises will turn Tory fortunes around.
After 14 years of Tory promises, a massive Parliamentary majority what we are left with is Socialism and inaction. As that a vote winner?
October 29, 2023
“A Budget for growth…”
What a good idea.
We heven’t had one of those for a while.
We need a Conservative Governent with a Conservative Prime Minister.
Someone like Ms Truss.
Maybe Mr Sunak will learn that not all intelligence is artificial.
October 29, 2023
Three aims, one solution.
Cut government.
October 29, 2023
It has become a lifestyle choice for people to only work 16 hours a week and then top up their income with benefits. This shouldnāt be allowed. We have become a lazy self-entitled society living off the hard work of our ancestors, it will be very difficult for people to accept that their standard of living is going down but it will go down. The Government seems to use immigration to raise our GDP to avoid going into recession but this is a foolās policy as it lowers the GDP per head of population and isnāt sustainable.
October 29, 2023
Stop the economy destroying Net Zero Strategy. There were no bids for offshore wind at the last renewables auction (AR5). This week the wind industry requested a CfD price of Ā£65-Ā£75/MWhr (at 2012 prices) an increase of up to 100% on the AR4 CfD price of Ā£37.35/MWhr (2012 prices). At 2023 prices this will become Ā£100/MWhr.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/10/25/electricity-prices-rise-70pc-pay-wind-farms-energy/
The reason for the requested price increase is because for the first time the Government made the AR5 bids binding. Until now wind companies could avoid taking up their CfD contracts and sell on the open market instead where they are competing with gas with a Ā£60/MWhr carbon tax added to their generation costs. Currently the lowest CfD price in operation is the Triton Knoll Ā£97.82/MWhr (2012 prices). The AR4 price of Ā£37.35/MWhr (2012 prices) will never happen. Vattenfall have cancelled their Boreas project having spent Ā£400m saying they need a 40% increase.
We cannot run the country on expensive, unreliable, chaotically intermittent and insecure renewables. The Ā£100/Mwhr doesnāt include the enormous costs to upgrade and stabilise the grid or for the costs of storage if we are to have a reliable supply of electricity.
Nuclear is clearly the way forward for low CO2 emission energy.
Not that there is a climate emergency caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions as demonstrated by the IPCC WG1ās own table 12.12 in chapter 12 and by the work of Happer & Wijngaarden showing negligible GHG warming even if the atmospheric level of CO2 is doubled.
October 29, 2023
Funny, table 12.12 in chapter 12 of IPCC AR6 WG1 (page 1856) does not demonstrate any of these things. And Harper & Wijngaardenās study not accounting for the H2O feedback (as it is a plain vanilla static calculation) obviously cannot demonstrate anything of the kind either.
But I guess repeating 12.12, Harper & Wijngaarden, and Clauser as a mantra
(ā¦ Om Mani Padme Hum ā¦) helps some feel good ā¦
October 29, 2023
Useful ideas and I expect the next Labour government will implement more of them than the current Conservative government (who will implement none of them).
October 29, 2023
āCut the benefits bill by helping more people into better paid workā
How are you going to do this John? Investing into night colleges? Giving student type loans for night courses and say CPC and HGV driving licences? What is your proposal for the lower paid work replaced by robots? How much does someone have to earn right now not to be entitled to any benefits? Arenāt the majority of benefit claimants only doing 16 hours, what % of claimants have all adults in the household working 37.5 hours.
October 29, 2023
And in other news we read the cabinet office has apologised for its Response Unit, set up to counter fake news from Russia/Iran etc, smearing a well known journalist for merely disagreeing with part of its Covid policy.
Big brother is actually here and with the On Line Safety Bill in the hands of Ofcom will only grow.
Our host and all parliamentarians who have failed to recognise or organise push back are complicit.
October 29, 2023
A Cabinet reshuffle is expected before Christmas.āJeremy Hunt is rumoured to be standing down at the General Election.āMakes it a bit awkward for him to be Chancellor in the run up.āA new Chancellor has room to make a new case for fiscal direction.āAnd a typically succinct case has been made by Sir John.
October 29, 2023
Iām in full agreement apart from one point. Can you justify why you propose retaining 20% VAT on energy for non-vat registered small businesses please?
October 29, 2023
VAT reform recommendations laid out by the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) suggested lowering the vat registration threshold to that of the NMW or 0. By freezing it, it appears something of a roll out. This government kicked the ball down the road, do you think Labour will?
October 29, 2023
As we know the Tory’s and their illegitimate Government are bankrupt of ideas, they are obliged to toe the line dictated by their Socialist WEF Leaders and its followers in the collective ‘Blob'(Treasury, BoE, OBR, Civil Service and yes the EU). Wihout them they could not have formed a Government. For all Sir Johns welcome, logical and practicable ideas they will not get listened to let alone digested, they ignore Socialism and Control.
But here is an idea, from today’s Telegraph – “World leaders have begged Taylor Swift to bring her tour to their countries after the $5.7 billion boost it has given the US economy”. One person can bring in $5.7 million, what would happen in the UK if more than one person, a UK owned Industry for instance was permitted not punished for earning the Country revenue. Might sound tongue in cheek, but just look at what the 2 Chancellors and their cohorts have given us.
October 29, 2023
The approach Sir John has stated today is definitely Conservative and worth voting for . It would stimulate individuals and businesses alike and restore the confidence that is so badly needed . The one thing he did not mention however was the daily vast cost to the country of illegal migration and how we all would benefit if it disappeared . The BoE have made many serious errors of judgement under a Governor who is clearly not fit for his role ; the staffing and role of this establishment should be immediately changed ; it is the Government who should be in total control of the management of the economy and not an un-elected body . The sooner Sir John is Chancellor the country would benefit .
October 29, 2023
Sir John
While I support your ideas and thinking, what is missing is that the constant tinkering, so-called rebalancing is all there to redress the failures of the whole system. Is the most costly fail we all carry the burden of
Every tax has costly(administration and otherwise) implications for the whole systems in trying not to over punish one sector or other. It then in itself becomes costly and burdensome. Then we are faced with one tweak after another to realign another just to compensate, the previous flaw upon flaw.
Its the systems run/managed by Government top to bottom that are in themselves creating extreme tax burdens on the whole country, administratively they are costly as well as overbearing. The end result is everything being employed on taxing us is costing more than the tax the spend it permits.
So Sir John, your suggestions would not have the hopped for gains that a simple top to bottom much needed realignment could achieve. We need to define what the burden tax is to carry, do we need to subsidies everything or for that matter anything that doesnāt contribute to the benefit of all of us? Then all that is needed is simple equitable way that everyone that benefits from it can contribute. The UK like all good businesses needs to stop dancing around the subject, and simplify, simplify.
This Conservative Government ban, cancel and punish creates another burdensome cost on us all.
Also to this end, what has the independent BoE, the George Osbourne OBR, the ONS all technically previously run by the Treasury, and now just funded by them every achieved other than exorbitant costs for the UK. If they all came back fully under the Treasury contro managed by the Chancellors Office, with the democratically Government being responsible would anything change? Other than the exorbitant taxpayer cost.
Reply I have often written about ways to spend less, replacing subsidies with tax cuts, raising public sector productivity and getting the state out of areas it does not need to be in.
October 29, 2023
I hope you’re only suggesting the reversal of the 2107 / 2021 IR35 changes as a step on the way to… something else. Abolition, perhaps.
However, it won’t happen due to lobbying – those vested interests have not gone away and will be furiously persuading those in power to do their bidding. The family business of our current PM-in-name-only is just one of the big-business beneficiaries from IR35 – his father in law would be furious.
Therefore, in the world of real politik… not gonna happen.
A better list of “should”s would include “Lay the ground work to ensure that these things can happen in future governments”…
That would involve the defenestration of 200+ non-conservative MPs (the electorate are about to achieve most of that for you in the next year or so) and mechanisms in place to ensure that no further infiltration occurs – the latter is much more difficult.
October 29, 2023
I find it very difficult to comment on this, such is the frustration that so little of it is likely to happen.
October 29, 2023
The Sunday Sermon, if only the right people took notice!
October 29, 2023
These are sensible Conservative budget proposals. However, now that most automobile companies are recognizing their folly in following the net zero government policies over electric vehicles and are announcing that they will be discontinuing production of electric vehicles, the government must take accountability by reshaping energy and transportation policies and announcing new guidelines to accompany any budget proposals. This is particularly pressing in light of the imminent speech from the throne opening the next session of parliament next week. Without prompt relevant and revised statements the government will be missing the boat, yet again.
The vehicle map is being redrawn and the government is not on board.
October 29, 2023
So 22nd November will be a crucial date. If the Chancellor fails to heed the critical calls inherent within JR’s recommendations and produces just a mish-mash of give-aways for next year’s general election, that should signal the end of any remaining support for the Tories from the Conservative-leaning section of the electorate. Too late anyway for me; I have long ago despaired of these successive Tory governments and their PMs and Chancellors, and have voted and will vote elsewhere.
October 29, 2023
Tinkering with the rules on IR35 will not make any difference to overall employment. Whether an IT worker or anyone else is self-employed whilst working for one organisation for a period a lot longer than for one contract completion, they still need to earn a living even if they find themselves unable to continue working as a freelance.
October 29, 2023
Hi sir John
Your wasting your time , they got to the producers and tax payers in their place can’t let them to well off
Thank you
October 29, 2023
There doesnāt seem to be any shortage of money, Ā£4.6 billion on the Ukraine war and financing the Indian space programme to give just one example
October 29, 2023
All good ideas but too limited. We will only have room for real, beneficial tax reductions by cutting actual government spending. Only by cutting the size of the Civil Service will you get increased productivity. Only by facing the facts will you get the economy growing, but there is no sign either the PM or Chancellor are prepared to do that. They are paralysed by inaction, lacking any vision for the UK, and their main approach seems to be to make life as difficult as possible for people. 20 years of deficit budgets, and our MPs are still too thick to see we have been living beyond our means for years.
October 29, 2023
A great budget. I wish I was reading it the day after the Chancellors statement. However…………
October 29, 2023
Why was it a private meeting? The BBC is publicly funded. MPs āthey work for usā are publicly funded. You all answer to us. Meetings like this should be public and the minutes published for any of us to read.
As for the budget. Save us all a load of money and defund the BBC.
October 30, 2023
I would expect a list of bullet points on the discussion, and the 1922 recommendations.
His job is safe however, due to the 1922 not having any sway with the next Government.
October 29, 2023
In this day and age, whats the point of the clocks going back, we no longer all work on the farm nor is it still 1916
October 30, 2023
Public sector productivity could be improved easily by getting rid of all the unnecessary non-jobs. Why don’t you list them all?