3+ day, 9+ hour ago (1025+ words) By the time the chancellor reached the dispatch box, the OBR had accidentally published its verdict in full online At a glance: the key points from the budget Shortly before midday on Wednesday, a series of headlines about Rachel Reeves's budget began appearing on the Reuters newswire, sending instant ripples though financial markets. The details were jaw-dropping: they appeared to spell out the key policies of the chancellor's budget more than 40 minutes before she was due to deliver them to a crowded Commons chamber. "UK OBR ECONOMIC AND FISCAL OUTLOOK: BUDGET TAX RISES RAISE 26.1 BLN STG BY 2029-30," read an alert published at 11.41am. In the chaotic moments that followed across newsrooms and trading floors " as well as throughout Westminster " the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) appeared unaware that it had published its highly sensitive analysis of Reeves's tax and spending plans…...

6+ day, 16+ min ago (571+ words) Peter Kyle defends government as Reeves faces criticism about pre-budget briefings ahead of Wednesday announcement Economists are saying that that this lack of certainty has been bad for growth. This is what Andy Haldane, the former chief economist at the Bank of England, told the BBC yesterday. We've had month upon month of speculation " fiscal fandango, basically. And that's been costly for the economy. It's caused paralysis among business and consumers. It's the single biggest reason why growth has flatlined, it's been grounded in the second half of the year. In an interview this morning on the Today programme, Mohamed El-Erian, former chief economic adviser to Allianz, the German finance company, and he said the economic data suggested Haldane was right. He explained: There are a number of data points that suggest that the prolonged speculation has flatlined growth. You…...

1+ day, 14+ hour ago (548+ words) Clarification creates prospect of two-tier system for retirees solely on new state pension and those on private schemes People who rely only on their state pension for their income will not have to pay tax on it, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has said, creating the prospect of a two-tier system for those in retirement. The new state pension is set to rise to "241.30 a week next April, putting the annual income for someone receiving the standard payment at "12,547 " just below the personal tax allowance of "12,570 a year. The freezing of tax thresholds means that if the state pension rises by just 2.5%, from April 2027 it will fall above the threshold and someone receiving it will face paying tax on "292 of their payments " a bill of "58. Wednesday's budget document included a commitment to "ease the administrative burden for pensioners whose sole income…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago (723+ words) Stronger finances require a stronger economy, but budget tax rises and spending cuts could squeeze activity further Rachel Reeves's autumn budget is not simple: Britain's economy is misfiring and things need turning around fast. Yet a fiscal consolidation on the scale the chancellor is expected to require could push in exactly the opposite direction. The latest figures from the economy are hardly encouraging. Growth slowed from 0.3% in the second quarter to just 0.1% in the third, driven down in part by the cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover. It is a potential doom loop scenario. Stronger public finances require a stronger economy. Yet large tax rises and spending cuts on 26 November could further squeeze activity amid an already weak growth outlook. In the City, this has bond market investors worried. Yet so too does a budget that would not fully cover an…...

2+ day, 19+ hour ago (507+ words) Richard Hughes, head of Office for Budget Responsibility, says he has apologised to chancellor for "letting people down" How Rachel Reeves"s budget was leaked 40 minutes early The chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility has said he felt "personally mortified" by the early release of its budget documents and said the former boss of the National Cyber Security Centre will be involved in an investigation into the incident. Richard Hughes said he had written to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the chair of the Treasury select committee, Meg Hillier, to apologise, and launched the inquiry. "I felt personally mortified by what happened. The OBR prides itself on our professionalism. We let people down yesterday and we"ll make sure it doesn"t happen again," he told BBC Radio 4"s Today Programme. Ciaran Martin, the former chief executive of the…...

2+ day, 18+ hour ago (661+ words) Move will have greater impact on living standards of taxpayers in bottom half of income scale, thinktanks say Rachel Reeves will punish poorer households more than the better off through the freezing of income tax thresholds announced in Wednesday's budget, two major thinktanks have said. The Resolution Foundation said the freeze on income tax thresholds for a further three years to 2031 would harm the living standards of taxpayers in the bottom half of the income scale. More than 1.7 million workers will be dragged into either paying tax for the first time or pushed into a higher band by an additional three-year freeze on income tax and national insurance thresholds. Reeves conceded it would hit "working people" but denied it constituted breaking the Labour manifesto and said it would bring in "12.4bn by 2030-31. Ruth Curtice, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation,…...

1+ week, 4+ day ago (420+ words) Global markets are racking up their fourth day of losses in a row, as concerns over technology valuations are worrying investors. Asia-Pacific stocks have dipped to a one-month low today, amid signs that the enthusiasm that has driven stocks higher in recent months is fading, with shares, risky currencies and crypto assets all sliding MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan has lost 1.8%, slipping to its lowest level since mid-October. South Korea's KOSPI has lost 3.5%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng is down 1.9%. Japan's Nikkei 225 is also having a very rough day, down over 3%, on concerns over an escalating dispute with China over Taiwan Last night, the US stock market fell, with the S&P 500 share index closing at its lowest level in a month. European stock markets are heading for losses when trading begins at 8am GMT too. Various reasons…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago (721+ words) Paul Nowak says OBR should be modernised to ditch "hardwired" support for austerity economics Britain"s budget watchdog is in danger of strangling growth and should be modernised to ditch its "hardwired" support for austerity economics, the TUC has warned. Less than two weeks before Rachel Reeves"s autumn budget, the trade union umbrella group said that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was at risk of being a "straitjacket" on growth in living standards. It called for an urgent review into the OBR"s role at the heart of the chancellor"s budget-setting process from the earliest opportunity after her 26 November tax and spending statement. Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, told the Guardian: "I don"t think the chancellor, whatever happens at the budget, wants to go down the road of austerity 2.0. "But we"ve got a fiscal…...

2+ day, 21+ hour ago (666+ words) Rachel Reeves targets UK's wealthiest in "26bn tax-raising budget We also have budget analysis from research institute NIESR (the National Institute of Economic and Social Research) to digest. They identify that freezing the income tax thresholds until the end of the decade will fall on poorer workers the most (a point also made by Resolution Foundation this morning). [Reminder: higher-rate threshold and additional-rate threshold are to be frozen at "12,570, "50,270 and "125,140, respectively until 2030]. NIESR also critises the "lack of economic vision' in the budget: Today's Budget locks in a high-tax, high-debt steady state in a world of low productivity growth and higher interest rates. Even the historically large tax share of GDP now planned is only just enough to stabilise " not reduce " a debt ratio stuck around 100 per cent of GDP for the foreseeable future. Distributionally, the extension of the income tax…...

3+ day, 14+ hour ago (1005+ words) Damaging events could knock finances off course, says Treasury's independent forecaster as it downgrades growth outlook Rachel Reeves says budget will cut living costs after shock OBR leak The Treasury's independent forecaster has warned that Rachel Reeves's tax-raising budget will still leave the public finances in a "vulnerable" position despite her more than doubling the UK's financial buffer. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the potential for damaging events " such as a global stock market crash or future pandemic " to knock the government's finances off course remained high, even while the chancellor increased her headroom from "9.9bn to "22bn. After a wide-ranging review of the UK's economic health stretching back to the 2008 financial crash, the OBR also said the economy would grow at a slower rate over the next five years than previously estimated. The OBR said the economy would grow…...