Spring Statement: Chancellor to consult on new ways of funding infrastructure projects March 13, 2019 The government is to launch a consultation on how the government pays for infrastructure projects such as Crossrail and HS2 in future, the chancellor said today. In a Spring Statement overshadowed by an impending vote by MPs on whether to accept a no-deal Brexit, Philip Hammond said he would consult business on how to fund [...]
Business groups slam government plans to slash no-deal Brexit tariffs to zero March 13, 2019 Business groups criticised government proposals to slash tariffs to zero in a no-deal Brexit this morning, with the CBI warning it could prove to be “a sledgehammer for our economy”. The government said its measures should avert a £9bn hit to consumers and businesses if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal [...]
DEBATE: With just 16 days to go until Brexit, is there any point to the Spring Statement? March 13, 2019 With just 16 days to go until Brexit, is there any point to the Spring Statement? Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG, says YES. While Brexit is likely to dominate minds again this week, and continue to bring a fog of uncertainty over the outlook for the UK economy, the Spring Statement is still important. [...]
Economics could teach Theresa May a thing or two about tackling knife crime March 13, 2019 Knife crime continues to dominate the headlines. What can be done about it? Economics does not pretend to provide all the answers. But, perhaps surprising to some, it has a lot of useful insights to offer on crime. Gary Becker was a professor of both economics and sociology at Chicago. One day he was pushed [...]
The left should listen up: Tax reform is a progressive cause March 13, 2019 In 2012, the columnist Mary Dejevsky wrote a piece for the Independent arguing that the centre-left should advocate a flat tax. It was in response to the publication of the Single Income Tax, the final report of the 2020 Tax Commission, convened by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) and the Institute of Directors, and chaired by former [...]
New proposals for NHS rules risk taking us back to the 1970s March 13, 2019 Reforming the laws around how the NHS operates may not sound like a particularly scintillating topic, particularly when the health service is in the news already for the far more headline-grabbing issue of scrapping A&E waiting targets. Nonetheless, potential legislative changes proposed by NHS England and NHS Improvement last month that have gone largely unreported [...]
Working groups established to help finance sector deal with climate change March 12, 2019 Four working groups have been set up to deal with the risks climate change poses to the UK’s financial system, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said. The groups will focus on risk management, scenario analysis, disclosure and innovation, the groups said. The decision was made at the first meeting of the Climate [...]
Lending rises for remortgages but falls for UK house buyers at end of 2018 March 12, 2019 Mortgage lending was up for remortgaging and down for house purchasing in Britain in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to a year earlier, new statistics by the Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have shown. The proportion of high loan-to-income (LTI) loans, those greater than four times the value of annual income [...]
Britain’s trade gap widens as exports to EU fall March 12, 2019 The UK’s trade deficit in goods and services widened by £1.3bn to reach £10.4bn in the three months to January as exports of cars and fuels fell, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said. Britain’s trade in goods deficit widened by £1.6bn with EU countries and £0.8bn with non-EU countries to reach a total of £38bn, the [...]
UK economy rebounds in January but longer term growth remains weak March 12, 2019 The UK economy grew faster than expected in January, with GDP expanding 0.5 per cent, newly released figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show. This marked an improvement on December 2018, when GDP shrank by 0.4 per cent. Read more: OECD slashes growth forecasts and warns of no-deal Brexit recession January’s figure was [...]
