Early Release: Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood arrives at Downing Street for a Cabinet meeting on the day a second round of more than 1,000 prisoners were freed under an early release scheme to alleviate prison overcrowding © Monica Wells / Alamy Stock Photo
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the Government will release another 1,100 prisoners early in a bid to ease more overcrowding in prisons in England and Wales. The release comes as the Government announced a review into punishment outside of jail time, and could lead to judges sentencing things like ‘prison outside prison’ under the form of house arrest. Mahmood also confirmed the Government’s commitment to build the 14,000 more prison places promised but not executed by the previous Government, whilst aiming to reform the sentencing process to avoid further overcrowding.
The Government launched a rallying call on Monday for ideas to help the NHS, as it launched a public consultation asking the public for their thoughts. With a fairly large publicity push from the Government, the consultation has attracted vast numbers of responses and certainly more media attention than most of its other consultations running, with some interesting proposals coming in, such replacing ambulance sirens with healthy eating advice. It appears however the Government may not appreciate the Great British dry wit as much as the public (with some great screenshots of sarcastic responses all over X this week) as it appears the Health Department has been removing and hiding posts which were “clearly inappropriate or irrelevant” (more of our favourite submissions in You’ve Got To Laugh).
Donald Trump’s Election Campaign filed a Federal Election Commission complaint accusing the Labour Party of ‘blatant foreign interference’, citing media reports about contact between the Labour Party and the Harris campaign and apparent volunteering efforts. The Party has been accused of sending strategic staffers to help the campaign, following a (now deleted) LinkedIn post from Sofia Patel, Head of Operations at the Labour Party, claiming that almost 100 current and former Labour Party staff would be travelling to the US in the coming weeks to help elect Harris, though the Labour Party have said their members volunteering in the States have gone by their own accord.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is gearing up to deliver Labour’s first Budget in 14 years, which is expected to include tax rises and spending cuts to the value of £40 billion. At the election, Labour pledged not to increase taxes on “working people” and said it would not raise VAT, income tax or National Insurance. The party also committed to not increasing Corporation Tax on businesses. With Reeves reiterating this week that there would still be “difficult choices” as a result of the £22 billion hole in the nation’s finances, here’s a headline roundup of what could be announced on 30th October:
Debt rules: Reeves confirmed the Government will make a technical change to the way debt is measured in order to fund extra investment. It is expected to allow for up to £50 billion more borrowing to invest in projects such as roads, railways and hospitals, although not all of this is expected to be allocated at the Budget.
National Insurance Contributions by employers: The Prime Minister and Chancellor have refused to rule out an increase in employer NICs, with tax experts warning of a hit to British retirements funds if Reeves scraps the NIC exemption on employer pension contributions.
Inheritance Tax: Reports suggest that Reeves is expected to go after Inheritance Tax exemptions rather than increasing the rate at which the tax is charged. She is reportedly looking at extending the seven year rule on gifting to 10 years and could target business and agricultural property relief and AIM shares.
Capital Gains Tax: It is widely expected that Reeves will raise the headline rate at which Capital Gains Tax is charged. However, the Prime Minister appeared to dismiss suggestions that it would be as high as 39%, as recommended by the Resolution Foundation.
Stamp Duty: In 2022, the previous government increased the rate at which people start to pay Stamp Duty Land Tax from £125,000 to £250,000 and from £300,000 to £450,000 for first-time buyers. However, the higher thresholds are only due to last until March 2025 and Labour has not yet committed to an extension.
Fuel Duty: More than 70 Conservative MPs have written to the Chancellor asking for the 14 year freeze on fuel duty to be maintained, urging her to consider the impact of an increase on low-income families, small businesses and the logistics industry. It follows reports suggesting that it will rise by 7 pence per litre.
‘Sin’ taxes: Reeves is said to be considering a tax raid of up to £3 billion on the gambling sector, with the Social Market Foundation calling on the Chancellor to double the tax on online gambling companies from 21% to 42% and the IPPR saying the Government should double taxes, such as the 15% general betting duty levied on high-street bookmakers’ profits.
Just five days to go…
1,100 – Number of prisoners released early this week in the second round of emergency releases since September
19% – Increase in consumer and retail fraud over the last year
1-2% – Annual negative impact of obesity on UK GDP, according to the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee
56 – Number of world leaders attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
32% – Proportion of Russia’s national budget that will be spent on defence next year
3,000 – Approximate number of police officers in the UK who carry firearms
55% – Conservative Party members intending to vote for Kemi Badenoch as leader, compared to just 31% for Robert Jenrick, according to ConHome’s latest survey.
11 – Days until the US presidential election…
Keir Starmer attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa, where he announced a new UK Trade Centre of Expertise, operating out of the Foreign Office, to drive export-led growth across the Commonwealth. The meeting was overshadowed however by calls for Britain to pay reparations for its role in the slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds announced a Regulatory Partnership for Growth Fund on his visit to the G20 meeting in Brazil. The £2.3 million fund will 'help UK regulators work with international partners to remove trade barriers and shape markets in various growing sectors. The DBT has argued that the fund will see sectors benefit from a potential £5 billion of new export opportunities over five years, with trade barriers worth £300 million targeted within the first 12 months.
Defence Sec John Healey signed a 'landmark defence agreement' with his German counterpart Boris Pistorius. The ‘Trinity House Agreement’, marks a 'fundamental shift in the UK’s relations with Germany and for European security', and the MOD hope it will help drive investment into the UK, including through the opening of a Rheinmetall factory for artillery gun barrels. It will also see the UK and Germany ‘work together systemically for years to come on a range of ground-breaking defence projects and across all domains’.
Firearms officers subject to a criminal trial following a police shooting will be given a presumption of anonymity, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced this week, during a statement following the acquittal of a police officer who fatally shot Chris Kaba in Streatham in 2022. Under the new rules armed police will have anonymity up to the point of a conviction. The Home Secretary also reiterated Government plans to introduce neighbourhood policing and new police force performance standards.
Environment Sec Steve Reed launched an Independent Commission into the water sector and its regulation this week. The Commission will publish a report next year with recommendations to the Government on how to tackle inherited systemic issues in the water sector. The recommendations will form the basis of further legislation for long term changes to the sector.
There is a new cat in downstreet… (we had to squeeze this in here somewhere and given Larry will undoubtedly not be finding this funny, the ‘You’ve Got To Laugh’ section seemed inappropriate). Top Cat marks to BBC 5 Live’s Matt Chorley for getting his claws into the story that the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has moved into the Chancellor’s pad in Downing Street with her husband, two children and… a rescue kitten called Pumpkin 🎃
The second reading of the Employment Rights Bill was the big event in the Commons this week, passing easily by 386 votes to 105. With progress now well underway, the Government also chose Monday to launch four consultations on measures within the Bill, seeking views on: Statutory Sick Pay, zero-hours contracts, a modern framework for industrial relations, and remedies against abuse of the rules on collective redundancy and fire and rehire. And that wasn’t all, as the Bill’s impact assessments were also released… to mixed reception. The Government’s press release highlighted the positive impacts the Bill will have, include delivering up to £600 income savings for workers in the lowest paid, insecure jobs. No mention though of the assessment’s estimated up to £5bn annual cost for businesses.
Monday also saw a number of Private Members’ Bills presented by MPs. Separate from the recent PMB ballot, these Bills are unlikely to receive any further parliamentary time unless they have Government support. That being said, feel free to have a look at what was raised if you’re interested in any of the thirty Bills presented by Christopher Chope MP, whose most recent controversy came only last week when he said Kemi Badenoch was “too preoccupied with her children” to be party leader…
Former PM Theresa May (now Baroness May of Maidenhead) delivered her maiden speech yesterday in the House of Lords, after she was nominated for a peerage in the 2024 Dissolution Honours and entered the Lords in August. She spoke at a debate on the impact of the Government’s climate agenda on jobs, growth and prosperity, where she raised serious concern over recent changes in the climate with increasingly frequent extreme weather events, and made a strong call for action.
The majority of the British public are fearful of how next week’s Budget will impact their financial situation, according to a poll from Ipsos. With Labour repeatedly reinforcing the “£22bn Black Hole” line and rumours swirling of an increase to employers’ National Insurance contributions, 53% of those asked said they were more fearful than hopeful about how the Budget would impact them, while 46% were more fearful it would harm the quality of public services.
Supporting entrepreneurship will put Britain ‘back in business’, argues a report from Onward. Setting out how high costs, poor access to finance, the challenging economic climate, a fear of failure, and excessive bureaucracy were holding entrepreneurs back, the report recommends solutions to tackle each of these barriers, while highlighting the need for growth-oriented startups and warning that ‘under 1% of the business population generates over 11% of the country’s productivity’.
Communities need more power and influence over planning and local development, concludes a report from the New Local. Warning that the Government’s housebuilding targets will be at risk without deeper community involvement, the report suggests that a Planning Gain Tax be introduced to simplify the system of developer contributions; and calls for the English Devolution legislation to be used to increase opportunities for community ownership.
Bad news for Wetherspoons fans: Health Secretary Wes Streeting has nixed the idea of installing the pub chain in every hospital ‘to reduce the rates of mental illness’, joking that the idea was vetoed by the Chancellor during Budget talks. Streeting recently launched a call for new ideas to improve the NHS, and some responses went way beyond thinking outside the box. One genius idea suggested putting Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, who currently knows a thing or two about injuries, in charge of the health service, while another called for Downing Street’s own Larry the Cat, to replace Streeting.
The accountant at Wrightbus must have had a slight heart attack when watching Northern Ireland OPQs (as one casually does), when Northern Ireland Minister Fleur Anderson announced that the company signed a £100 billion deal to supply 1,000 buses to Go-Ahead. If that figure seemed a bit high, you’re right. Anderson later submitted a correction, clarifying that the actual deal was worth £500 million. Just a minor 99.5% decrease.
