Aviation bosses confident Burnham won’t abandon third runway Aviation The aviation industry is confident that Andy Burnham won’t abandon the government’s flagship expansion of Heathrow, despite the Prime Minister and transport secretary distancing themselves from the megaproject at Labour conference. Several industry figures told City AM that ministers’ refusal to endorse the multibillion-pound third runway development was a sign Burnham had not yet evaluated [...]
Legal sector warns against tax ‘raid’ proposal on client account interest ahead of Budget Legal London’s legal sector has sounded the alarm over government plans to cut interest on law firms’ client accounts to fund the justice department, warning it could drive some law firms out of business. The Ministry of Justice’s consultation on a proposal to introduce an Interest on Lawyers’ Client Accounts Scheme (ICLA) closed in March after [...]
Andy Burnham can’t treat Heathrow expansion as a local planning issue Politics Has Andy Burnham’s commitment to devolution morphed into a convenient excuse not to lead? I ask, because he seems to have excused himself from the debate about a critical £50bn national infrastructure project: Heathrow’s third runway. The project has been debated since the 1980s but officially kicked off in 2003 when Labour’s Alistair Darling, then [...]
Healey: We don’t have as much money as we did under New Labour September 28, 2026 Chancellor John Healey has warned Labour members that the government does not have available funds to spend more on public services. In his address to party activists, Healey said Tony Blair’s government in the late 1990s and early 2000s had more flexibility with public finances given higher growth rates and lower amounts of debt. The [...]
Stamp out pension tax speculation or risk another cash grab, industry warns Healey September 24, 2026 The pension industry has warned Healey not to allow pension tax speculation to go “unchecked” in the run up to his maiden Autumn Budget, after rumours led savers to pull millions from pension pots last year. UK savers pulled £91bn from their pension pots before last year’s Autumn Budget as they looked to dodge Labour’s [...]
Frozen tax thresholds to hold back Brits for ten miserable years September 23, 2026 In March 2021 Chancellor Rishi Sunak described it as “a tax policy that is progressive and fair.” In November 2022, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt extended the policy, describing it as necessary and fair. In October 2024, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced an end to the policy, saying extending it beyond 2028 “would hurt working people.” Alas, a [...]
‘Worryingly large’: Labour’s debt cost racks up to £200bn September 22, 2026 More than £200bn has now been spent on covering government debt since Labour came into power, official figures show, reflecting the pressure bond traders have put on public finances in the last two years. Analysis of public finances data by City AM shows that debt interest payable to the government’s lenders in bond markets since [...]
Will our fiscal psychodrama never end? September 22, 2026 I’m sure it wasn’t always like this. There was a time, really not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, when trying to predict the contents of an upcoming Budget was limited to dedicated policy wonks and Westminster’s most dogged journalists. These days, fiscal speculation is a major occupation for several months of [...]
How mansion tax changes could triple the number of payers in suburban London September 22, 2026 When she introduced the measure in her October Budget, then-Chancellor Rachel Reeves told MPs her new mansion tax would “deal with a longstanding source of wealth inequality in our country.” Reeves promised that the new levy, set to cost as much as £7,500 for the highest-value homes, would raise more than £400m and would affect [...]
Labour mansion tax raid to hit homes worth £1.5m September 20, 2026 The government is considering plans to lower the mansion tax threshold to properties worth over £1.5m, a move that would hit nearly 300,000 homes. Labour originally announced the tax on properties worth more than £2m in last year’s Autumn Budget by former chancellor Rachel Reeves. Properties over this valuation are set to pay a £2,500 [...]