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Housing secretary Angela Rayner is planning to double the number of council homes after receiving a boost in the budget, according to reports.
The deputy prime minister is set to announce nearly £1billion to begin a “council housing revolution” and build tens of thousands of extra homes, The Times reported.
Ms Rayner believes council housing is crucial for the government’s target of 1.5 million new homes in the next five years.
As part of the plan, the deputy PM is also set to crack down on the Right to Buy scheme, which allows council house residents to buy their homes below market value, according to The Times.
A senior government source told The Times: “Angela’s ambitions on social and council housing have the full backing of the prime minister and chancellor, and that will become even clearer in the weeks ahead.
"They are joined at the hip when it comes to getting Britain building.”
We’ll be bringing you all the latest updates ahead of the big event on 30 October here, on The Independent’s liveblog.
Key Points
- Streeting refuses to rule out income tax threshold freeze
- When is the 2024 Budget and what might be in it?
- Government will keep manifesto pledges, says Starmer
Will Reeves increase fuel duty?
Fuel duties, or taxes, apply to purchases of petrol, diesel and a variety of other fuels used both for vehicles and domestic heating.
The level of fuel duty depends on the type of fuel used, with a litre of petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol attracting a fuel duty of 52.95p. It was cut by 5p by the Conservatives in 2022, after being frozen at 57.95p since 2011.
It represents a significant source of revenue for the government, expected to raise £24.7 billion in 2023-24, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility – equivalent to 2.2 per cent of all receipts.
Scrapping the 5p cut would raise the government an estimated £2bn. However, doing so would not automatically force fuel retailers to bring down their costs, likely meaning higher fees for motorists, at least in the short term.
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 16:01 1729521839UK interest rates will drop to 2.75 per cent, Goldman Sachs predicts
UK interest rates will drop to 2.75 per cent, Goldman Sachs predicts
The drop in rates will be welcome news to mortgage borrowers who have had a tough couple of years, although savers will be hit again
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 15:43 1729521117UK banks pay record amount in taxes after making bumper profits
UK banks paid a record amount in taxes last year after generating bumper profits, while the gap between taxation on the City and other global financial hubs widens, figures show.
The UK banking sector’s total tax contribution was £44.8 billion for the financial year to the end of March, according to analysis produced by PwC for trade group UK Finance.
With the government set to announce its Budget next week, there has been growing speculation over possible tax changes to help cover shortfalls in public finances.
Gary Greenwood, a research analyst for Shore Capital Markets, said the Government would need to “think long and hard” before potentially increasing taxes for banks.
“While taxing banks more may not get much pushback from the public, they already carry a relatively high tax burden in an international context and we feel that it would also be a damaging move when the Government is seeking to drive increased economic growth,” he said.
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 15:31 1729519377What are the rumoured welfare spending cuts?
Labour has made no secret of its ambition to reduce the government’s welfare spending bill, so Ms Reeves will likely take the Budget as her opportunity to do so.
Speaking at Labour’s party conference, the prime minister said: “We will get the welfare bill down because we will tackle long-term sickness and support people back to work.”
What has been confirmed is a crackdown on benefit fraud, which looks to save £1.6bn over the next five years. Also possible is the mooted reform to personal independence payments (PIP) to provide cash vouchers or expenses rather than regular payments – a Conservative-era policy that Labour has refused to rule out.
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 15:02 1729518302Threat to high earners as Rachel Reeves looks to plug £40bn Budget black hole
Threat to high earners as Rachel Reeves looks to plug £40bn Budget black hole
Minister refuses six times to say whether Britons on six-figure salaries count as ‘working people’
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 14:45 1729515717Will there be an inheritance tax increase?
Inheritance tax is a levy on the estate of someone who has died. This is their property, money and possessions. Crucially, it is not paid if the value of these things is below £325,000.
The tax rate is 40 per cent, but it’s only charged on the part of the estate that’s above the threshold. In 2023/24, only 5 per cent of deaths generated an inheritance tax bill, raising around £7 billion.
However, the IFS writes that the tax measure “is littered with special exemptions”. These include a business relief, the ability to pass on agricultural land tax-free, and the tax-free passing on of pension pots.
The economic think tank says that ending these measures alone would raise £4.8bn a year by 2029.
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 14:01 1729512177Could the government tax pension savings?
Pension tax relief is a reduction of the amount of tax paid on private pensions. It helps workers save for retirement by boosting their pension pots.
The amount of tax relief a person is granted is based on their income tax. It will effectively cancel out tax on pension contributions up to a maximum of £60,000.
After this, contributions will be taxed at either 20, 40, or 45 per cent, depending on which income tax rate the worker falls into.
However, the chancellor is thought to be considering a flat 30 per cent pension tax relief rate. This would mean that higher earners would effectively pay 10 per cent in tax, while those on the additional rate would pay 15.
The measure would raise around £3 billion a year, with 7 million earners paying more tax. But it would be better news for basic rate earners, who would actually begin to receive a 10 per cent boost to their pension contributions.
Evaluating the idea last year, the IFS said it would “redistribute the burden of taxation from the bottom 80 per cent to the top 20 per cent of earners.”
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 13:02 1729510197Calls for budget to fund Iron Dome-style missile defence system in UK
The UK needs its own version of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system to protect it from Russian aggression, former ministers have said.
Former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt told The I: “This is a significant UK capability gap we must plug at the earliest opportunity. The forthcoming Budget must enable early work to be done on the alliance’s key needs and let the US and other partners know we mean business.”
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 12:29 1729508517Budget 2024 preview: Capital Gains reform
Capital Gains Tax (CGT) is paid on the profit made when an asset which has increased in value is sold. It is applied to things like the sale of personal possessions worth more than £6,000 (apart from a car), property that’s not the seller’s main home, shares and business assets.
It is charged at 10 or 18 percent for basic rate taxpayers, and 20 or 24 for higher or additional rate earners. There is a tax-free allowance of £3,000.
There are several ways CGT could be changed. In the run-up to the election, the Lib Dems and Greens both said they would rethink the tax bands to be more similar to income tax, raising an estimated £5.2bn a year.
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 12:01 1729505637Fact check: Would raising employer national insurance be a ‘tax on working people’?
Speculation has mounted in the subsequent months, with an increase in employer NICs now looking likely. The measure has caused strong political debate, focused on whether it would break Labour’s manifesto pledge to not raise taxes on “working people.”
Ministers and Treasury officials have indicated the government’s position is that the measure would not break their manifesto pledge. Labour has not confirmed that an employer NIC hike will be included in the Budget, but has refused to rule the measure out.
Meanwhile, Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson has argued it would be a “straightforward breach.”
The tax expert adds that in the extreme case that an increase of one pence per pound in employer NICs was passed on to employees in the form of lower wages, the measure would only net £4.5 billion a year. He adds that the end figure would probably be a little higher than this, but much less than a previous HMRC estimate of £8.5 billion.
Jabed Ahmed21 October 2024 11:13 Newer1 / 6OlderDisclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
