Jeremy Hunt has been warned against using next week's autumn statement to announce pre-election tax cuts for the wealthy while overseeing a multibillion-pound stealth raid on the incomes of 36 million workers. With the Conservatives trailing in opinion polls, the chancellor is considering deep cuts to inheritance tax for his set-piece speech to the Commons on Wednesday after receiving upbeat figures for the public finances from official forecasters.
A Fraser of Allender Institute podcast looks at the upcoming Autumn Statement by Jeremy Hunt on Wednesday 22nd November next week. Kate Milne is joined by Deputy Director, João Sousa to discuss the upcoming Autumn Statement on 22 November.
Paul Johnson shares his thoughts on Question Time ahead of the forthcoming Autumn Statement. Paul Johnson CBE is a British economist and civil servant, currently serving as director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a member of the Committee on Climate Change, and a visiting professor in Economics at the Department of Economics, University College London.
Jamie Stone MP managed to neatly pack in a lot of topics from local to international in his few minutes at the UK parliament this week. This week, I used the King's Speech to get on the record.
A report presented on Thursday 16 November 2023 at the Environment and Infrastructure Committee of Highland Council provided members with an update on the overall 20mph programme in Highland ahead of a planned public consultation which will be launched in December. The report included the consideration for reverting some roads or sections of them back to 30mph speed limits.
Twenty eight community transport initiatives across the Highlands have been awarded a share of £358,850 by The Highland Council to support them with the important role they play in delivering lifeline services to their local communities. Chair of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee, Councillor Ken Gowans highlights the valuable work undertaken by providers.
Members of The Highland Council's Health, Social Care and Wellbeing have endorsed a scoping exercise currently being carried out on services available for children with disability in Highland. Included within the exercise is the consideration of Self-Directed Support and residential and respite provision which provides short break accommodation for children and young people with complex health and disability needs.
The Horizon Inquiry into the Post Office and ruining of sub-postmasters lives based on false readings from the Horizon system supplied by Fujitsu. The Inquiry is costing millions of pounds of taxpayers money.
The Scottish Government quickly addressed short-term financial challenges in 2022/23, but reform of the public sector is needed to deal with longer-term financial pressures. The Scottish Government needs to work with its partners to clearly set out how the design and delivery of public services will need to change.
Three in four single mothers face living in poverty when they retire, according to a new report released on 15 November 2023 by Scottish Widows. The 19th annual Women and Retirement Report reveals that the ‘motherhood penalty' - the financial and career disadvantages faced by working mothers - has an enduring impact into later life.
Children across Scotland will be gifted a quarter of a million books and counting activities as part of the Read Write Count with the First Minister programme. Around 248,000 books will be given to pupils in primary two and three this year as part of a programme underlining the First Minster's personal commitment to supporting child literacy and numeracy learning across the country.
DLUHC has allocated £9.5 billion of funding for local government through three significant funds to support levelling up, but projects are behind where the Department expected them to be and it appears unlikely that local authorities will be able to complete projects by the original deadlines, a new National Audit Office report has found. Through the Towns Fund and Levelling Up Fund DLUHC sought to back "shovel ready" projects, but both funds had projects that were yet to start or were paused as at 31 March 2023, with 64 projects completed by this point.
Details of a proposed Scottish tax aiming to encourage the use of recycled materials in construction and other industries have been published. The proposals form part of the Aggregates Tax and Devolved Taxes Administration (Scotland) Bill, which has been introduced to Parliament.
More than half of people don't know what happens to their pension when they die and now is the time to find out, the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) says. Only two in five know their pensions would go to their nominated beneficiary.
The UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt will have limited room for manoeuvre when he makes his autumn statement about the government's financial plans on November 22. The government is committed to supporting the Bank of England's current strategy for reducing inflation, which involves using rate hikes to slow down economic activity.
Redirected HS2 funding to resurface more than 5,000 miles of road across the country, improving journeys for all. driving to become smoother, safer and easier with £8.3 billion of redirected HS2 funding, enough to resurface over 5,000 miles of road.
Forty programmers demonstrated how AI-enabled robotic dogs could carry out potentially dangerous tasks that would otherwise be undertaken by Army bomb disposal experts. The Defence AI Centre (DAIC) sponsored Hackathon on 7 to 9 November 2023 showed the possibilities. The hackers worked in five teams to exploit the AI capabilities of the robotic dogs, which are able to climb stairs, avoid obstacles and move over rough ground.
A campaign has been launched to support the recruitment of more adult social care workers and help address vacancies. The new Adult Social Care recruitment drive, ‘You can make the difference' includes TV, radio, outdoor and digital advertising.
Hundreds of households and businesses affected by the impact of Storm Babet will benefit from additional funding from the Scottish Government to help with recovery. Impacted local authorities will be allocated additional funding to enable them to provide flat rate grants of: £1,500 to people whose properties were most affected by flooding related to Storm Babet.
New Back to Work Plan to help up to 1,100,000 people with long-term health conditions, disabilities or long-term unemployment to look for and stay in work. Additional support comes alongside tougher sanctions for people who don't look for work, as part of the next generation of welfare reforms.