‘Pension death tax’ raid attacked by Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell January 22, 2025 Britain’s biggest wealth management firms have mounted a coordinated attack on Rachel Reeves’ plans to slap inheritance tax on undrawn pension pots today, describing the proposals as “flawed and potentially damaging” to grieving families. In a letter to the Chancellor, the bosses of Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell, Interactive Investor and Quilter, which collectively manage some [...]
Heathrow: Starmer won’t say if he backs London airport expansion January 22, 2025 Sir Keir Starmer has refused to say whether he would back the expansion of Heathrow Airport after voting against a third runway in 2018. The Prime Minister said would not be “comment on speculation” on the issue, as emphasised the government is “committed to growth” when asked about reports ministers could be set to approve [...]
Inheritance tax: Bill for Britain’s ‘most hated tax’ hits record January 22, 2025 HMRC collected £6.3bn in inheritance tax in the last nine months, but with changes to the code announced in Budget, this bill is expected to get bigger.
Davos: Reeves defends fiscal rules and says Heathrow expansion is ‘pro-growth’ January 22, 2025 Rachel Reeves has insisted the UK would continue to meet her “fiscal rules”, describing them as the “bedrock” of the stability she aims to restore to the economy and public finances. The Chancellor spoke at a Bloomberg event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said public sector [...]
JD Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin calls on Starmer to reduce pub taxes January 22, 2025 Wetherspoons chairman Tim Martin has once again called on the government and Keir Starmer to reduce the tax gap between supermarkets and pubs in his company’s latest trading update. Martin said following the government’s decision to hike the national minimum wage, business rates and employers’ national insurance, costs at Wetherspoon will increase by around £60m [...]
Spending review: No new cash unless departments cut by five per cent January 21, 2025 Government departments won’t receive any cash for new projects unless they meet the Treasury’s requirement of a five per cent spending cut, Darren Jones has said. The chief secretary to the Treasury spoke at the Institute for Government (IfG) think tank’s conference on Tuesday about the need for a “reckoning” with state spending. Jones wrote [...]
Reeves wades in to motor finance scandal in bid to soften £30bn payout January 21, 2025 Shares in some of Britain’s biggest motor finance lenders have surged today after the Chancellor Rachel Reeves revealed plans to intervene in a mis-selling scandal which could cost the industry billions of pounds. A court judgement handed down in October sent shockwaves through the motor finance sector and has opened the door to what analysts [...]
Davos: Reeves to meet Trump allies in search for UK growth January 20, 2025 Rachel Reeves is expected to meet Donald Trump’s allies at Davos in a bid to talk up the UK’s growth prospects. The Chancellor is set to attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in the days following the US President’s inauguration and in the wake of turmoil in the UK bond markets. It follows a [...]
‘Unsustainable’ sickness benefits cost UK more than defence, Lords warn January 20, 2025 The UK is spending more on “financially unsustainable” sickness benefits than defence, and “urgent” reform to the welfare system is needed to rein in costs, a group of Lords has said. In a letter to the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, the cross-party Lords Economic Affairs committee said the current benefits system penalises people [...]
Contactless train ticketing finally coming to London Stansted Airport January 20, 2025 The government has outlined its plans to roll-out contactless ticketing at nearly a hundred UK train stations in 2025, including London Stansted Airport, with a start date less than a fortnight away The Department for Transport (DfT) said on Monday some 47 stations across the South East would be able to use tap-in and tap-out [...]