With the Budget looking to be one helluva political set piece drama, it's time for C@W to predict the content. She's gonna do something big, but what? Over to you all. Compo question: which levers will Reeves pull?
(I have always reckoned that simply adding more bands at the upper end of the Council Tax meets all the political and technical tests: it's fast, 'progressive', virtually impossible to dodge. If that isn't one of her measures, she's even madder than previously thought.)
AND of course it all leads to heightened leadership speculation. AND as you all know, I have long championed the notion that Miliband's prospects are a great deal better than most people say - in that Doomsday aspect, if not for keeping his job under Starmer. Right on cue, here's Guido:
The Times picks up on rumours that Ed Miliband is a viable replacement for Starmer come the PM’s defenestration. As Guido reported back in September the Energy Secretary went on major manoeuvres after the PM tried and failed to remove him from post at the Phase 2 reshuffle. He is blamed by senior figures in Labour for a series of inflammatory briefings whose aim is to undermine Starmer. No surprise then that with Keir’s possible end on the horizon someone has decided to start whispering Miliband’s name in hacks’ ears…
I agree.
ND
15 comments:
I do hope you're not encouraging Rasherless Rachel to compete with Weird Ed by adopting even loonier Green policies? Say it ain't so! Double Council Tax if you don't have a heat pump, that sort of thing. A tax on any roof that doesn't have solar panels on it.
Guido again - he has a list of all the ideas tht have been trailed, it's like 16 or 17 or so.
Maybe something that isn't even on the list?
I quite like the low political cunning of the "2 up, 2 down" idea - increase income tax 2p, cut NI 2p, so hits well-off pensioners etc but not "working people". So maybe that one.
Extra Council Tax bands, leave income tax and NI, freeze is enough, extra tax for LLPs, tax leccy cars (just to upset Miliband, up gambling taxes bigly or change debts to 'in honour only', cut ISA allowance to £10K, extra tax on big cars. Offer a good tax deduction for White Elephant funds for windmill factories, research into whiney people and tidal power. Saves paying the useless benefit money.
Demote Shabana to Junior Home Secretary and hire on secondment a Chinese justice minister - with a few small changes to legislation to accomodate a 'new approach'.
Starmer is dull as ditchwater but Miliband is far far more dangerous - he is an enthusiast. I prefer ditchwater to enthusiastic politicians.
If anyone thinks the answer to our troubles is Miliband, then we may as well bring back Rayner and go bankrupt officially.
What Chris said............
Doesn't Council Tax go to the council (clue is in the name)? Sure, it'll reduce some pressure for central government to bail our the local councils, but does it do enough to fill the coffers of the state?
For many (most?) councils their revenue comes more from central government than anywhere else. So in principle, boosting their C-Tax revenues allows government to redirect funds, as it sees fit
The extra bands would raise oodles in the SE (disproportionately), effectively able to be distributed elsewhere via displacement of govt funding
A few years ago now I lived in an area where the Council Tax receipts didn't even quite cover the Council's contributions as employer to their staff pensions..... unusual, I hope, but illustrates the idea that most Council funding comes from central government.
If Reeves and co have any semblance of sense, they'll know they're getting pilloried over any rise, so may as well ensure any headroom isn't temporary.
As they don't, and they'll water down what's been trailed to look better, I'm expecting 1p on income tax, with 2p off NI. Mansion Tax and CGT on primary residence over 1 million, extra council tax bands, 2p a mile charge on EV, and maybe a new income tax band.
Lot's of technical wriggling there, which they don't seem to understand never cuts through.
CH
As for Miliband replacing Starmer, that might kill off a potential traffic light coalition next election and start a few riots as the lights go out.
As things stand, next election either kills off Reform due to implementation of austerity, or kills off the Greens and Lib Dems as a bailout and enforced austerity happens.
CH
Some form of change to pension tax relief - cut the allowance for higher/additional rate tax taxpayers and/or reduce the annual allowance.
She might go for the council tax route - with locals coming up, that'd be a handy little trap to lay for Reform et al, but as sleight of hand goes, it's not exactly opaque.
Can see her adjusting the Employee's NI rate over 4 large a month, 50 grand a year, to 4%, possibly by raising the band a tad, 'cos them's the wealthy right? Play to the base.
There'll probably be a whole load of fannying about at the edges, APD, IPT, etc, etc. And it's coming right off the back of COP, so VED and such.
God only knows though. I suspect the whole trailing thing is intended to make the actual delivery not as bad as it could have been, and then we stagger on into the spring as the sense of relief dissipates.
OT for ND: I've finally found a source giving a modicum of detail on the Sizewell C RAB funding. Wondered if you might want to do a story on SZC financing?
It lists the participants and %, and says the RAB model is estimated to give a weighted average cost of capital of 6.73%, which is a huge advantage to the around 10-12% for CfD. But also says if costs overrun £47.7bn (2024 prices) the the UK state/leccy bill payers essentially pick up all overrun costs, and 50% if costs go over £40.5bn - you can see how this reduces risk enormously for private investors!! You can also see why the estimated £38 billion (2024) cost is less than HPC - it has no/little cost of capital during build to cover in the estimate and much lower contingency allowance. So maybe the 20% cheaper than HPC narrative in UK press is not from engineering process improvement on second project but just reduced financing costs during build?
Rather predictably the source is not our dynamic investigative media, but the French Société française d’énergie nucléaire (in English):
https://sfeninenglish.org/sizewell-c-rab-financing-risk-sharing-model/
Also there is a recent interesting titled FT article I'm not able to read, but which I gather says SZC will be an EDF exemplar project to support future sales:
https://www.ft.com/content/cc39da49-6ebf-40e2-bfbe-296ee2596ce9
"EDF boss vows to speed up nuclear projects and narrow gap to Asian peer"
Mr W - good idea. Meanwhile, I can fix the FT for you
https://archive.ph/RFKea
Hah! FT claims EDF CEO said to do new nuclear build to schedule (eg 6 years not ~10) "we need to find set-ups that allow us to make 90 per cent of decisions in a quarter of an hour.” Odd thing for an (ex-)engineer to say - not sure the regulator would like decisions about a nuclear plant to be made in 15 mins (on the back of an envelope?)!
FT also says the private investors have "committed to a combined equity of £3.25bn to Sizewell C". That's only 5.5% of the estimated £38bn cost!! I thought that traditional nuclear new build financing was about 50:50 equity:bonds, so the bond holders are reassured that up to a 50% cost overrun would pretty much be losses absorbed by the equity holders, so bond holders would be repaid thus accept a tolerable yield. But SZC seems to load up govt/RAB leccy bill payers with an enormous part of the risk. It seems totally crazy - am I missing something here ND?
And it's not just build risk to consider. Should the wind+solar+batteries scenario work out producing £60/MWe or less power (or maybe fusion be made to work, or SMRs against the odds actually be cheap) in 12 years time , SZC will have ongoing losses every year of its life. Or does SZC in-effect get CfD-like minimum price protection on top of RAB finance?
Why don't UK journalists answer questions like this rather than replay spoon fed info.
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