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Rachel Reeves to channel Margaret Thatcher and promise the City a ‘new era' of deregulation to boost economy

Rachel Reeves to channel Margaret Thatcher and promise the City a ‘new era' of deregulation to boost economy

The Sun8 hours ago
RACHEL Reeves will promise to usher in a Thatcher-style 'Big Bang' in the City this week as she vows to slash regulation on banks.
The Chancellor will try to put some desperately needed boosters under Britain's stuttering economy by luring big financial firms to Britain.
In her hotly-anticipated Mansion House speech, Ms Reeves will tell banking bosses to forget New York and Paris and bring their staff to London or Leeds instead.
But she is under massive pressure as the economy is shrinking and millionaires are fleeing Britain over sky-high taxes.
A Treasury source said: 'Millions of Brits work in financial services, but for too long red tape and excessive regulation has choked off innovation and growth in the economy.
'Well, no more. Britain is entering a new era. We will slash regulation and make the UK the best place in the world to do business.
'Forget Paris, New York and Frankfurt - come to London, Leeds and Edinburgh.
'Rachel is determined to create a new Big Bang which will turbocharge growth in the economy for a new generation to put more pounds in people's pockets.'
The Big Bang refers to the deregulation of the London Stock Exchange carried out by Margaret Thatcher in the mid 1980s.
It put rocket boosters under the City and established London as a leading financial centre.
Ms Reeves will use her speech to announce moves to slash red tape on banks and financial services companies.
It will be her first big speech since Ms Reeves was caught on camera crying during PMQs.
The Chancellor is facing massive questions about her economic strategy after the economy shrank for the second month on the trot in May.
And the annual Henley Private Wealth Migration Report revealed that 16,500 millionaires are set to leave the UK over the next 12 months - far more than China and Russia put together.
A senior Labour frontbencher told The Sun on Sunday that tax hikes in the autumn Budget "look inevitable".
They said: "Taxes are going to have to go up. Most of us expect the income tax threshold freeze to be extended."
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Labour's next hit to independent schools could be far more insidious
Labour's next hit to independent schools could be far more insidious

Telegraph

timean hour ago

  • Telegraph

Labour's next hit to independent schools could be far more insidious

Is Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson about to launch her latest onslaught on independent schools? Over the last year Labour has already imposed 20pc VAT on school fees and scrapped mandatory business rate relief for schools with charitable status, vindictively treating them differently from all other charities. Those two measures were unambiguous, public attacks on private education. What might now follow is rather more subtle, but all the more insidious. Phillipson has announced the Government is considering scrapping Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP) for children with special educational needs (SEN), and planning to replace them with a less onerous and cheaper system. This may sound like good news to anyone who rightly thinks that public spending is out of control. Nearly 483,000 children, or 5.3pc of the school population, had an EHCP in the 2024-25 school year, according to government figures – an increase of 11pc on the previous year and a doubling since 2016. The numbers are clearly unsustainable. But might Phillipson's conversion to sound public finances be motivated by another factor? EHCPs are an essential part of why the state pays, either in whole or in part, for some children to go to independent schools. Local authorities are obliged to provide schooling to children living within its boundaries. But what if it is unable to provide adequate education to a given child due to their specific needs? This may be due to the fact that the child would not be able to cope with larger class sizes, or it might be because their dyslexia is at such a level that the local school is not set up to deal with it. More often than not, the local authority will do all in its power to avoid paying up for the independent school which can provide an adequate education suitable for that child. In 2024, less than half of EHCPs were issued by local authorities within the 20-week time limit required by law, according to the Department for Education. Many parents have to appeal the initial decision to the national SEN tribunal to try and achieve a satisfactory outcome. But some parents do eventually succeed in getting their local authority to pay for private provision. This school year there were 7,200 children with an EHCP attending mainstream independent schools, with more than 20,000 at specialist independent schools. When the Government imposed VAT on school fees the only category that remained exempted were local authorities paying fees for children with an EHCP. If these plans no longer exist, how will it be decided whether a local authority is obliged to pay for private provision? And what mechanism of appeal will there be? Will local authorities continue to pay for the education of children with existing EHCPs? These are questions that may be worrying many parents this weekend. It is also of concern to the schools themselves. For the independent mainstream schools, local authority-funded places for children with an EHCP will only be a very modest proportion of their total intake. But for specialist schools it is a different story. At one school in London, which is a world leader for children with dyslexia, around 60pc of pupils have their school fees paid for by their local authority. Paying for independent schooling is undoubtedly a heavy burden, but it is not the fault of parents that a local authority is unable to provide an adequate education for their child within its own schools. A move from Phillipson could turn out to be akin to what Michael Gove did as education secretary, when he increased the required employer contributions for teachers' pensions. Historically, most independent schools have been part of the state's pay-as-you-go, unfunded Teachers' Pension Scheme. In 2012, the employer contribution to the pension scheme was 14.1pc; this year it has reached double that at 28.68pc. Those who support sound public finances and are appalled by unaffordable public sector pensions may have been tempted to applaud that move. But in truth the measure has amounted to a levy on independent schools. Those in the state sector have had their funding increase commensurately – and in any case employer pension contributions for public sector employees in a pay-as-you-go scheme are only a matter of churning government funds. Gove's move is a major part of the reason for that fees at independent schools soared even before Labour imposed VAT, as the increased pension costs have been passed on to parents. As a result, middle-class parents have increasingly found themselves priced out of them. Whether the extra funding for the pension scheme is a saving to the state at all is debatable, if it pushed parents out of choosing an independent education. We do not have the details of what Phillipson may be planning to replace EHCPs with. But whatever Labour introduces, it is unlikely to be favourable to the private sector. As well as being a world leader in private education generally, some of the UK's specialist independent schools are also at the very pinnacle of what can be done for children with special needs. EHCP reform must not imperil these centres of excellence and damage the future prospects of thousands of children.

Reeves needs to take a leaf out of Gordon Brown's book
Reeves needs to take a leaf out of Gordon Brown's book

Telegraph

timean hour ago

  • Telegraph

Reeves needs to take a leaf out of Gordon Brown's book

In 2002, Gordon Brown introduced the small breweries' relief (SBR), slashing taxation for UK 'micro-breweries'. The then-chancellor's instincts were broadly statist. Britain's tax burden grew from 31pc to 34pc of GDP from 1997 to 2010 – the decade he spent running the Treasury followed by three more as prime minister. But Brown also had commercial acumen, understanding the need not just to talk about economic growth but create an enabling environment to make it happen. His SBR tax-break, which saw breweries producing up to 5,000 hectolitres (around 880,000 pints) annually paying half the standard duty rate, was a case in point. SBR was transformative, sparking the formation of thousands of independent breweries – creating not only thousands of jobs, but hundreds of millions of pounds in tax revenue from production, distribution and sales activities that wouldn't otherwise have existed. Britain's declining beer industry was revolutionised, as small, often family-run breweries emerged to compete with large national and global producers. There was a brewing resurgence not just in cities, but in towns and rural areas too, as 'craft breweries' became rooted in countless UK communities. The financial relief offered by SBR encouraged investment, innovation and a dramatic rise in beer styles – more and better products at lower prices. But, above all, Brown's anti-statist, tax-cutting move generated more jobs, higher exports and far more tax revenues too. Rachel Reeves had a picture of Gordon Brown on her wall as a student. Yet today's Chancellor should remember that her political hero and mentor, for all the big-state proclivities she shares, was pragmatic and courageous enough to sometimes shrug off the comfort blanket of Left-wing ideology and do what worked. Brown cut the basic rate of income tax from 23pc in 2000 to 20pc in 2007, stimulating economic activity. He reduced the main rate of corporation tax from 33pc to 28pc and the small business rate from 24pc to 19pc. Most famously, in his first Budget in 1997, he slashed the long-term rate of capital gains tax (CGT) from 40pc to 10pc for those building businesses, super-charging innovation and entrepreneurship. Yes, Brown made some disastrous calls – not least selling-off much of the UK's gold stock for a song and the abolition of pensions funds' dividend tax credits, costing hundreds of billions of pounds in compounded returns foregone, seriously weakening UK retirement funds. But despite his political tribalism and robotic delivery at the Commons dispatch box, he was capable of intellectual agility, demonstrating policymaking nous which, from time to time, really hit the spot. Since becoming Chancellor last July, Reeves has shown no such agility. She has hiked tax rates relentlessly, with her October Budget comprising a huge £40bn annual tax increase plus £30bn of extra yearly state borrowing. Having imbibed the soft-Left nostrums of mediocre academic economics, she is convinced that state spending, financed by taxation and borrowing, is the only route to growth. In the real world, her crude, naive Keynesianism, implemented at a time of already serious fiscal peril, has caused the decidedly lacklustre economy she inherited from the Tories to stagnate even more, while driving us to the edge of a fiscal crisis. Hammered by Reeves, consumers have pulled in their horns and business investment has stalled. No surprise, then, that on Friday the Office for National Statistics confirmed that GDP fell by 0.1pc in May, having already contracted 0.3pc the month before.

I'm buying a house and its seller wants to buy mine: Can I 'gift' it to them and avoid stamp duty?
I'm buying a house and its seller wants to buy mine: Can I 'gift' it to them and avoid stamp duty?

Daily Mail​

timean hour ago

  • Daily Mail​

I'm buying a house and its seller wants to buy mine: Can I 'gift' it to them and avoid stamp duty?

I'm looking to downsize from my rural detached house, and find something smaller in the nearby town that will suit me as I get older. Last week I stumbled across the perfect house. The sellers were a young family in a terrace off the high street who needed something bigger. The estate agent suggested showing them my detached house, and, as luck would have it, they wanted it. They offered the asking price and I returned the favour. My house is worth £500,000, which is £50,000 less than the one I'm buying. While mine is bigger, it needs work and doesn't have the best transport or amenities. I have also kept hold of a small flat I own in London. My solicitor says I therefore need to pay the stamp duty second home surcharge which will amount to £45,000. In understand stamp duty isn't charged on gifted property. Is it possible for us to do a swap where I essentially pay the seller the difference to reduce the stamp duty? So, for example, they would buy my house for £0 and pay no stamp duty, and I would buy their property for £50,000 and pay £2,500 rather than the full amount? Ed Magnus of This is Money replies: This is an interesting question and well worth asking, given how costly stamp duty is. You've heard that gifting a property, rather than selling it, can exempt the buyer from stamp duty - which is correct. But your situation is more than a straightforward giveaway. So could this work? For expert advice we spoke to Arjun Kumar, founder of the online accountancy service Taxd Founder, Andy Noton, a partner at accounting firm Lubbock Fine and Mark Barrett, tax specialist at Property Tax Advice ltd. Could the house swap lower their stamp duty bill? Arjun Kumar replies: Although there may not be stamp duty if a property is gifted in full, trying to mark these as two separate gifts would likely be seen as linked transactions and brought under His Majesty's Revenue and Customs' anti-avoidance rules. Mark Barrett adds: The suggestion of the gifting of property in both directions to avoid SDLT cannot work. There are specific rules in place just for this scenario. Ed Magnus adds: The loophole you think you have identified unfortunately doesn't apply to you. You don't say whether either property has a mortgage, but if so this would lead to further complications. A gifted home would become liable for stamp duty if the outstanding mortgage was £40,000 or more. The stamp duty is then payable on the value of the mortgage, not the property value. And in such a case, that mortgage would need to be either taken on by the person receiving the gift or paid off. To be taken on, the lender would also need to agree to the transfer. It would need to check that the person being gifted the property is eligible for the mortgage. Will the seller pay the second home stamp duty surcharge? Ed Magnus replies: The other complicated bit for you is whether you are liable for the second home stamp duty surcharge. In October the chancellor Rachel Reeves increased the stamp duty surcharge on second home purchases from 3 per cent to 5 per cent on top of existing rates. This means that someone looking to buy a second home is having to shell out even more upfront tax in order to do so. Under normal circumstances someone moving from one home to another won't be liable for the stamp duty surcharge even if they have a second property such as a holiday home or buy-to-let. The potential issue for you is that you kept hold of your very first flat which we assume was purchased as your principal residence at that point in time. Andy Noton replies: The key issue in this case is whether the house being sold by the reader is their 'main residence' or not. Ultimately, the additional stamp duty surcharge doesn't apply when someone is buying a new home to replace their main residence, regardless of whether they own a second home. This distinction is crucial, as it would reduce the tax bill from £45,000 to £17,500. The difficulty is that there's no strict legal definition of what counts as a 'main residence', but HMRC offers guidance. The main factor is usually where the person spends most of their time, but other factors, such as where they are registered with a GP, are also relevant for HMRC when making a decision. Therefore, with the help of their lawyer, the reader will need to determine which of their properties qualifies as their main residence. This will have to be declared in their stamp duty return and will ultimately determine the stamp duty tax to be paid. However, if HMRC has reasons to believe that the reader has replaced their second home rather than their main residence, it may launch an investigation, and the reader may become liable for penalties and the stamp duty surcharge. That is why it's so important that the reader is advised by a competent real estate lawyer. Mark Barrett adds: Your solicitor may not be correct in saying that the second home charge applies. As the reader is selling their home to purchase the replacement, then the higher rate will not apply if the reader is selling their existing home on the same day that they buy the new home, which is what sounds to be the situation here. Providing they nominated the house they're now selling as their home, then the relief applies. If the nomination didn't happen, but they've lived in the property they're selling and can demonstrate that, then this will still be okay. The test is 'intent of permanence' and to prove this you need to show you're are voting in that area, have tax returns sent there, and provide any other evidence that you live and work there. As always with tax, the smallest detail is important, so the reader is advised to seek professional advice. I'm sure the solicitor will want the tax accountant to put in writing the taxation implications, as the solicitor is not a tax accountant and not insured to give tax advice - despite being the firm responsible for the stamp duty filing. How to find a new mortgage Borrowers who need a mortgage because their current fixed rate deal is ending, or they are buying a home, should explore their options as soon as possible. Buy-to-let landlords should also act as soon as they can. Quick mortgage finder links with This is Money's partner L&C > Mortgage rates calculator > Find the right mortgage for you What if I need to remortgage? Borrowers should compare rates, speak to a mortgage broker and be prepared to act. Homeowners can lock in to a new deal six to nine months in advance, often with no obligation to take it. Most mortgage deals allow fees to be added to the loan and only be charged when it is taken out. This means borrowers can secure a rate without paying expensive arrangement fees. Keep in mind that by doing this and not clearing the fee on completion, interest will be paid on the fee amount over the entire term of the loan, so this may not be the best option for everyone. What if I am buying a home? Those with home purchases agreed should also aim to secure rates as soon as possible, so they know exactly what their monthly payments will be. Buyers should avoid overstretching and be aware that house prices may fall, as higher mortgage rates limit people's borrowing ability and buying power. What about buy-to-let landlords Buy-to-let landlords with interest-only mortgages will see a greater jump in monthly costs than homeowners on residential mortgages. This makes remortgaging in plenty of time essential and our partner L&C can help with buy-to-let mortgages too. How to compare mortgage costs The best way to compare mortgage costs and find the right deal for you is to speak to a broker. This is Money has a long-standing partnership with fee-free broker L&C, to provide you with fee-free expert mortgage advice. Interested in seeing today's best mortgage rates? Use This is Money and L&Cs best mortgage rates calculator to show deals matching your home value, mortgage size, term and fixed rate needs. If you're ready to find your next mortgage, why not use L&C's online Mortgage Finder. It will search 1,000's of deals from more than 90 different lenders to discover the best deal for you. > Find your best mortgage deal with This is Money and L&C Be aware that rates can change quickly, however, and so if you need a mortgage or want to compare rates, speak to L&C as soon as possible, so they can help you find the right mortgage for you.

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