Wages soar to £1.5bn as HMRC ramps up on compliance staff September 24, 2025 HMRC has allocated over £1.5bn for 2024-25 to support staff in compliance, preventing and detecting fraud cases and collecting taxes, representing a 23 per cent increase on its 2021-22 staff bill. According to a freedom of information (FOI) shared with City AM by think tank Parliament Street, over the past fiscal year as part of [...]
Nigel Farage rows back on key migration pledges September 24, 2025 Nigel Farage has appeared to row back on key aspects of his legal migration pledges amid mounting questions over whether his figures stand up as well as fierce criticism from top lawyers and researchers on the viability of his plan to end Indefinite Leave to Remain. The Reform UK leader told LBC on Wednesday morning [...]
Pat McFadden says lifting two-child benefit cap must be budgeted September 24, 2025 Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden has conceded that any plans to lift the two-child benefit cap must be “budgeted” amid growing calls from key Labour figures for the Tory-era policy to be scrapped. McFadden warned Labour backbenchers that any commitment to lift the cap would have to be funded by higher government revenue. “Everything [...]
Labour has made Britain a beacon of economic stability September 24, 2025 A recent influx of over £110bn in investment from global financial and tech firms as a direct result of the government’s successful economic plan, which fosters stability and reform, thereby creating jobs across the country and proving Britain is open for business, says Lucy Rigby Yesterday, Revolut – one of the UK’s fintech success stories [...]
India Business Group awards celebrate cross-border collaboration September 23, 2025 The deepening commercial relationship between the UK and India was thrust into the spotlight last night as business leaders gathered at the House of Lords for the fourth annual Indian Awards, hosted by the India Business Group (IBG). The gala event came just months after the signing of a landmark Free Trade Agreement between the [...]
Rachel Reeves ‘has no interest in hospitality’ after ‘reckless’ taxes September 23, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves “has no interest in hospitality”, according to nighttime adviser Sacha Lord, who also branded her National Insurance increases in last year’s Autumn Budget “both reckless and short sighted”. Lord, who is a member of the Labour Party, said the 2024 Budget was a “disaster for hospitality” which resulted “in many closures and [...]
OECD: Taxes and tariffs to damage UK economy September 23, 2025 Higher taxes and the sting from US tariffs are set to restrain UK growth, according to forecasters at the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with inflation soaring above all other countries other than the US. The OECD’s latest update on the state of the global economy said the UK’s “tighter fiscal stance” means [...]
UK economy stalls with 50,000 job losses ahead of Autumn Budget September 23, 2025 The UK economy was hit by a “litany of worrying news” in the three months to September with thousands of jobs lost ahead of Rachel Reeves’ second Autumn Budget. The latest ‘flash’ PMI from S&P Global showed business activity expectations for the year ahead slumped to a three-month low in September as firms braced for [...]
Rachel Reeves told to cut national insurance and raise income tax to gain £6bn September 23, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been told to cut national insurance for workers by two per cent and raise income tax by the same amount, with economists at a left-leaning think tank claiming a £6bn gain in revenue could be made. The Resolution Foundation, once the workplace of Treasury ministers Torsten Bell and Dan Tomlinson, has [...]
Infrastructure could be rare success story for Labour September 23, 2025 The decision to allow a second runway at Gatwick is entirely sensible and most welcome. As the Chancellor said yesterday on her visit to the airport, the development “will mean that people going on holiday will have a greater choice of destinations [and] it will mean lower costs for a family holiday.” More importantly, she [...]