Angela Rayner pushes for new tourist tax to fix black hole July 22, 2025 Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner is pushing Chancellor Rachel Reeves to give more power to councils to tax tourists amid worries that local governments are struggling to keep finances in check. Rayner has suggested that councils should be able to tax tourist hotel stays and take advantage of a rise in visitors, rather than taxing [...]
Sizewell C gets £38bn sign-off with support of Centrica and France July 22, 2025 Energy secretary Ed Miliband has signed off on a £38bn deal to build Sizewell C, with Canadian investment fund La Caisse, British Gas owner Centrica and French state companies lining up to back the nuclear power station. In a final decision signed off by Miliband, the government has agreed to be the largest equity shareholder [...]
Rachel Reeves oversees higher government borrowing than expected July 22, 2025 Government borrowing has overshot predictions, putting Rachel Reeves under more pressure to take control of public finances. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said public sector borrowing hit £20.7bn in June, higher than market expectations which pencilled in just over £17bn in borrowing. Borrowing in June this year was some £6bn more than at the [...]
FCA softens remortgaging rules in dash for growth July 22, 2025 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is set to remove red tape on remortgaging in the latest sign public bodies are tearing up their rulebooks to align with the government’s growth agenda. In new measures introduced by the City regulator, mortgage holders will be able to reduce the terms of their borrowing and switch to new [...]
Costly departures: Why an exit tax looks more likely than a wealth tax July 22, 2025 Tax experts have been queuing up to warn that a blanket tax on wealth is both unlikely and unfeasible. But as ministers insist the government will avoid tax hikes targeting average earners, could it turn to an exit tax to plug the gap? As reams of impressed tourists shuffled their way through the opulent surroundings [...]
Government consultants pledge under threat as spending jumps July 22, 2025 Government spending on management consultants rose by over £150m during Labour’s first year in office, despite the party’s manifesto pledge to halve the amount departments dish out to third party advisers, Morning Wire can reveal. Total spending on management consultancy contracts totalled £1.44bn during the first 12 months of the government’s four-year term, up from [...]
Rachel Reeves should tweak fiscal rules to ease pressure, IFS says July 21, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves should bring forward a change to fiscal rules to ease pressures faced at spring fiscal events, a leading economics think tank has urged. In a new briefing on public finances, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said Rachel Reeves should refrain from changing the number of times the Office for Budget Responsibility [...]
Natwest and Lloyds: What to expect from FTSE 100 bank earnings next week July 21, 2025 The FTSE 100’s banking titans, Natwest, Barclays, Lloyds and HSBC are gearing up for what promises to be an interesting half-year reporting season. Lloyds and Natwest will kick off earnings on July 24 and July 25 followed by peers Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered the following week. The first quarter was defined by President Donald Trump’s [...]
Reeves warned pensions tax raid could cost UK in the long run July 21, 2025 City platform Hargreaves Lansdown has warned Rachel Reeves that “tinkering” with the pension tax relief could cost the UK in the long run and undermine the government’s fresh attempts to get workers to save more into retirement. The return of the Pensions Commission, which will report its findings on the adequacy of retirement savings in [...]
Wealth tax would be a ‘dangerous road to go down’, BNP investment chief warns July 21, 2025 The chief investment officer at BNP Paribas Wealth Management has become the latest senior banker to warn over plans to introduce a wealth tax in the UK, describing the move a “dangerous road to go down.” In an interview with Morning Wire, Edmund Shing said the move was likely to discourage entrepreneurs from starting a [...]