Money

The Autumn Statement could propose offering discounts in stamp duty for homebuyers who take improvement to raise the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of their home during their first two years of ownership. Could this be the beginning of a new divergence between the Conservatives and Labour, where the Tories provide incentives and Labour pursue punitive measures?  More carrot and less stick over green policies seems a good thing Previous government policy was to threaten the owners of homes with low EPC ratings. Landlords were to be banned for letting properties with a rating lower than ‘C’, and in the longer term it would become impossible to buy, sell or take

The UK’s unemployment rate rose to 4.2 per cent in the three months leading up to August this year, according to new experimental data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a 0.2 per cent increase compared with the previous quarter (March to May 2023), but not a big change compared to previous data sets. The new numbers tell a familiar story: that the labour market is cooling slightly yet employers remain desperate for workers. For the last five decades, the ONS has relied on its Labour Force Survey – which covers ‘tens of thousands of households across the UK’ – for its employment data. But in a blog explaining changes to

The Renters’ Reform Bill aims to improve tenant security in the private rental sector by scrapping no-fault evictions, but it’s won’t solve Britain’s housing crisis. The Bill, which returns to Parliament this week for a second reading, was originally dreamt up in the dying days of Theresa May’s government. It could still just about make it in time for the next general election, as the government’s main electoral offer to ‘generation rent’. Yet the reality is that it fails to tackle the main cause of our housing woes: a lack of supply. The Bill’s main component is a ban on so-called ‘Section 21‘ or ‘No-Fault Evictions’. At the moment, the most common arrangement in

A 10 per cent increase in oil prices translates to a 0.15 per cent loss of global GDP and a rise of 0.4 per cent in global inflation, says Gita Gopinath, deputy managing director of the IMF. Before Hamas launched its assault on Israel on 7 October, the Brent Crude barrel price had already moved 20 per cent above its summer level of $75 and pundits were predicting $100, based on prospects of tighter supply from Saudi Arabia and Russia. Natural gas prices have also risen sharply with winter approaching – and no one knows how escalation of the latest Middle East conflict might affect other energy flows and supply chains.

There aren’t many Alex types in banking anymore. The popular middle-aged cartoon banker, greyer and greyer since the 1980s, is regularly depicted in the Daily Telegraph gazing sagely over the heads of panicked young traders, safe in the knowledge he’s seen it all before. Older traders like him are few and far between now. Instead, Britain’s banks and investment firms have been left largely in the hands of the youngsters, a generation too used to working in an era of free money. It’s a troubling thought. Since the 2008 financial crisis, expensive and experienced senior bankers have been cast out, replaced by younger, cheaper rivals. Credit Suisse was forced into a desperate rehiring scramble in

So, the doomsters have been proved wrong again – not least the Bank of England, which a year ago forecast recession throughout 2023. GDP figures released by the Office of National Statistics this morning show that the economy grew by 0.2 per cent in August, partially reversing a sharp contraction of 0.6 per cent in July.  Across the three months to August – which is a rather better guide to what is happening than the volatile monthly figures – show growth of 0.3 per cent. It is not possible now – by the usual definition of two consecutive quarters of negative growth – for Britain to suffer a recession in 2023, and

The biggest hinderance for the Conservatives is that they have nothing to offer young voters. The Labour party, however, just might. It seems that Keir Starmer will announce in his conference speech a plan to return to the idea of post-war new town corporations, which were able to compulsory-purchase land at agricultural value. It could – just possibly – mean a sharp fall in the price of new housing, massively expanding the number of first time buyers.  The great shame is that the Conservatives couldn’t bring themselves to introduce a similar policy You don’t have to be a socialist to feel aggrieved at your inability to afford a home, something that you

To no-one’s surprise, house prices fell again last month. Average prices were down by 0.4 per cent in September, according to Halifax, with the typical property now worth £278,600 compared with the peak of £293,500 in June 2022. Much of this, inevitably, has to do with high interest rates. For three decades until last year the housing market was pumped up by a downwards trend in interest rates, which increased the amount that buyers could borrow. Now that has come to an end, buying power is contracting. There is unlikely to be any rapid recovery. If rates remain high – and gradually it is dawning on markets that this is likely to

In the run-up to the Conservative party conference, Rishi Sunak was promoting himself as a serious politician who wanted workable policies that respect consumer choice. No more war on motorists! No more pie-in-the-sky net zero promises! Here was a practical man in tune with the concerns of ordinary people. Having teed himself up as a pragmatic, back-to-basics Conservative, it was all the more puzzling when, in his keynote speech, he announced a preposterous anti-smoking gimmick borrowed from Jacinda Ardern that no one was asking for. New Zealand is the only country to have taken seriously the idea of increasing the age at which people can buy cigarettes by one year

Speaking at the Centre for Policy Studies fringe event at Conservative party conference this afternoon, Jeremy Hunt reiterated once again that there would be no big tax cuts this year. ‘Debt interest payments have gone up so much in the past six months’, he told CPS director Robert Colvile, taking estimates for debt servicing payments over the £100 billion mark this fiscal year. The Autumn Statement, the Chancellor said, will lay bare just how dire the situation is: ‘It’s likely that our debt interest payments… are going to go up by more than £20bn pounds a year in the Autumn Budget compared to what was predicted in the spring.’ In other

The whispers going around last year’s party conference largely centred on the state of government – how it was deteriorating so quickly. This year’s whispers are about something that is by no means as dramatic, but possibly as existential to the future of the party: the prospect of tax cuts. The official line is simple: no tax cuts this year. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has spent his summer trying to quell expectations that his Autumn Statement next month will include any major changes to the tax burden, which is set to reach a post-war high by the time of the next election. This morning he said now is ‘not the right

The last time a Conservative Chancellor was in the business of cutting taxes, he pointed out that they reduce the incentive to work, invest, and start a business. This was why Kwasi Kwarteng proposed to abolish the 45 per cent additional rate of income tax last year. We really, really, shouldn’t have a tax system that can have a 68 per cent marginal rate, let alone a 20,000 per cent one He was right about the impact taxes have on incentives, but he was wrong to focus on 45 per cent as the highest rate of tax people pay in the UK. In fact, there are millions of people paying

Bond yields are soaring. The cost of debt, and very soon mortgages, is rising. And the government is getting nervous about how it is going to borrow the next ten or twenty billion. This might sound like the opening of a one-year-on post-mortem of Liz Truss’s ill-fated mini-Budget (we have all been treated to those recently). But in fact, it is a description of what is happening right now across Europe. The eurozone is facing its Liz Truss moment, and the results are likely to be every bit as catastrophic.  Across Europe the bond markets are starting to look jittery. Over the last couple of days, the yield on ten-year