Is Budget speculation a bad thing? November 20, 2025 Testing measures before the big day can be helpful, but the upcoming Budget has been a feeding frenzy, making it impossible to distinguish fan fiction from genuine policy, says Tim Sarson The Autumn Budget speculation season has become rather a circus. I thought last year was unusually long and noisy but 2025 takes things to [...]
Our savings are lazy – the Budget must put them to work November 20, 2025 Rachel Reeves should cut the cash ISA limit and redirect savings into British equities, says Steven Fine The old saying in finance is that “money never sleeps”: but a lot of ours is lazy. Today Britain sits on nearly a trillion pounds of ISA savings, yet too little is being put to work in our [...]
Reeves to give go-ahead to DLR Thamesmead extension at Budget November 20, 2025 Rachel Reeves is set to give the green light to a proposal to extend the Docklands Light Railway to Thamesmead in a major expansion of London’s transport network. The move, which would mark the first extension to a London train line since the Overground extension to Barking Riverside in July 2022, promises to create 10,000 [...]
Reeves’ milkshake tax ‘could force me to quit UK’ November 19, 2025 Rachel Reeves’ possible ‘milkshake tax’ could force a family business to move production oversees if it is introduced in the Budget next week, its boss has warned. Global Brands chief executive Steve Perez said the rumoured changes to the Soft Drinks Industry Levy could lead to making the decision which would “be devastating for local [...]
Autumn Budget: BrewDog boss issues £1bn warning to Rachel Reeves November 19, 2025 The hospitality sector needs to sell almost one million extra pints every hour in order to cope with a £1bn cost surge thanks to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ tax hikes, the chief executive of BrewDog has warned. James Taylor, who took on the job earlier this year, said Reeves needs to take ‘meaningful action’ because of [...]
Reeves’ Budget will fail to rescue public finances, top bank predicts November 19, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ upcoming Budget will not live up to market hopes of fiscal caution nor will it solve problems around high government expenditure, analysts at a leading City bank have warned. Reeves has said she intends to build a larger fiscal buffer than £9.9bn in order to “absorb shocks” next week while the Budget [...]
Knife edge: Hospitality calls on government to serve up change November 19, 2025 Industry insiders – from chefs to independent brands – are calling on the Chancellor to provide real support in next week’s Budget, writes Carys Sharkey “I’d rate it one out of 10. Frankly, it’s been negligible”. Ask any chef across the country how they would rate this government’s support for the hospitality sector and you’ll [...]
Recession fears as insolvencies creep up amid construction woes November 18, 2025 The number of insolvencies crept up in October, official data has shown, amid further pressures on the construction industry and worries that Budget measures may sound the death knell for struggling companies. Data released by the Insolvency Service showed a 1.7 per cent month-on-month rise in insolvencies. On a year-on-year basis, official numbers show insolvencies [...]
Reform and Tories battle over the Budget with spending cuts calls November 18, 2025 Opposition parties Reform UK and the Conservatives are intensifying pressure on Labour ahead of the Budget with calls for dramatic spending cuts to fix public finances. In separate press conferences on Tuesday, leaders Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch called for deep cuts to government expenditure to balance the books. Their renewed attacks on the government [...]
Banks back in Reeves’ tax targets amid Budget whiplash November 18, 2025 Britain’s banking giants are back in the Budget crosshairs as Chancellor Rachel Reeves mulls a tax raid on lenders’ profits. Banks had been expected to be spared from a tax grab in the forthcoming Budget due to Reeves’ inclination to protect the financial services sector, following a concerted lobbying effort by top finance chiefs. But [...]