Number 10’s lobby briefing with political hacks today was a torturous forty minute merry-go-round on what Andy Burnham really means when he opens his mouth on Brexit. Yet again…
Asked whether the government would rejoin the EU’s freedom of movement rules without a referendum, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said it was an “open conversation [but] “at the moment we haven’t set out either way“. Just this morning, Burnham himself said explicitly that the UK wouldn’t return to it without going to the country, claiming he would “never move ahead of the British public when it comes to Brexit”. In other words, clearly opening the door to a referendum. These were Burnham’s “personal” views, which seemingly can differ from the views of the government he is supposed to lead…
Pressed on what all this really meant, the spokesman said this afternoon:
“I would just point you back to his words, I have been clear, [we are] not at the stage where we have concrete proposals…”
A total mess…
The government has admitted in a recruitment advert that its new pay-per-mile tax is “designed as a long-term replacement for fuel duty” two days before Healey’s first Budget sets the scheme on its way into law. Oh boy…
The advert – for up to six policy advisers at the Treasury – closed on 5th October and promises the successful candidate “a pivotal role in delivering this new tax, one of the biggest tax reforms of this Parliament.” The team will be “progressing work to legislate for and deliver the tax”…
The Government’s published guidance is very careful to say only that the already announced tax on electric vehicles ‘is intended to help replace lost fuel duty revenue from cars over the long term’. No talk of full replacement…
The Treasury recruiters go further than anything the Government have said before and describe the tax as built to replace fuel duty outright, adding that it “will raise £4.4 billion across the scorecard period.” Big numbers…
From 1 April 2028, drivers of electric cars will pay three pence for every mile and drivers of plug-in hybrids 1.5 pence – on top of their existing road tax – by estimating their mileage in advance and having it checked against the odometer at every MOT. Fuel duty raises more than £24 billion a year. This pay-per-mile tax initially has been sold as only for electric cars, who of course do not pay fuel duty. It is set to be legislated for this year in the Budget on Wednesday. The Treasury’s plans are far more extensive…
Healey inherited the scheme from Reeves’ Treasury. Which is pushing ahead at full speed…
Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith tells Guido:
“John Healey must rule out pay-per-mile for every petrol and diesel driver at next week’s Budget. The British public are already taxed when they buy a car, taxed to fill up a car, taxed when they park a car, and now Labour want to tax every mile you drive. Families are not cash machines. With 20mph limits sweeping the country and petrol prices through the roof, is there no end to Labour’s war on motorists?”
Richard Holden, Shadow Transport Secretary, also said:
“Labour started with electric cars because it thought nobody would notice, but a tax built to replace £24 billion a year of fuel duty will not stop at 3p a mile on electric cars. John Healey must come clean about how far this road goes.”
Does Labour do everything by stealth? Anyone remember when they ruled out the Farm Tax before the 2024 election?
A new piece by the Economist magazine has attempted to produce its own figures for sex crimes by offender nationality. About ten years late…
The reason these crude guesses have to be made is because the government refuses to publish the actual figures. Wonder why?
It still manages to say: “it is hardly an epidemic.“ Ding dong – reality at the door…
HMRC is consulting on cutting the time workers have to reclaim overpaid National Insurance contributions from six years to four. Just as Healey prepares to give the taxman the power to raid bank accounts like a bandit…
HMRC insists it simply wants the deadline to match the one for income tax. That love of consistency disappears when it comes to its own powers though, because the same proposals would extend the period HMRC has to pursue unpaid contributions from six years to twenty…
The consultation contains no estimate of the cost to households and no transitional protection for claims that are valid today, so anyone owed money for 2020-21 or 2021-22 who has not yet claimed it would lose it. HMRC says no decisions have been taken and claims (hilariously) that nobody will be disadvantaged. Who on earth believes this?
UPDATE: Andrew Griffith, Shadow Chancellor, said:
“Labour are scrambling around for cash ahead of the Budget, and ordinary taxpayers are being made to pay the price.
This is another example of a Government that is always looking for ways to take money from the public, but makes no effort to make life easier for the people paying the bills.
Labour’s plans risk leaving ordinary people out of pocket through no fault of their own. That is fundamentally unfair. They should focus instead on making HMRC more accountable, simplifying and lowering taxes so we can get our economy moving.”
Consultant doctors are going on strike next month for 48 hours, beginning at 06:59 on 25th November. It is once again over pay and pensions. Here we go again…
Danny Kruger, Reform’s head of preparations for government, has put his name to a new Prosperity Institute paper calling for the Army to be cut down to one fully-resourced division in order to prioritise the Royal Navy and RAF. Trade-offs…
The new report from the Prosperity Institute argues that successive governments have spread the forces so thin they can no longer do any one job properly. It calls for a ‘maritime-first’ strategy to 2035…
The report argues that the Navy should be built around hunting Russian submarines and guarding undersea cables and pipelines. Home waters, then the North Atlantic, the gap between Greenland, Iceland, and Britain, the High North and the Baltic. Additional proposals include:
Kruger endorsed the paper:
“Dominating the waters around our islands is a must for any government serious about national security. This paper helps to outline some of the trade-offs that will involve, and calls on Britain to make the investments necessary for our defence.”
The paper is also backed by former Chief of the Defence Staff Field Marshal Lord Richards, Penny Mordaunt, former Chief of Joint Operations Lt Gen Sir Charles Stickland, and former Defence Attaché to Kyiv Rear Admiral Tim Woods. Bring back gunboat diplomacy…
Robert Jenrick on the Today programme:
“Can you now give a guarantee to your listeners this morning that no BBC presenter in the future will be exposed as a paedophile, as a number have been in the recent past? No, of course you can’t…”