Author: Blake Anderson

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A six-year freeze on personal tax thresholds has been a big factor holding back growth in the UK economy, a Bank of England rate-setter warned on Thursday, days before Rachel Reeves is expected to extend the policy in the Budget. Catherine Mann, an external member of the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee, said people on middle incomes had been hard hit by the effect of income tax and national insurance thresholds being fixed in cash terms, coming on top of higher mortgage costs…

This article is an on-site version of our The State of Britain newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every week. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersGood afternoon. We’ve been waiting so long for the Budget that it’s tempting to think that when Rachel Reeves approaches the despatch box next Wednesday the skies will part over Westminster and a clarifying light will shine on Labour’s plan for government. If only.While Reeves will unveil the broad fiscal scaffolding on which Sir Keir Starmer’s first-term ambitions will rest, most of the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is chancellor of the exchequerThe Budget next week will deliver on the promise of change. That change will be driven by this government’s number one mission — to deliver sustainable growth after a decade and a half of stagnation.But growth can only be built on stable foundations. So my first and most important job next week at the despatch box is to turn the page on years of instability and uncertainty which have — for far too long — deterred investment and undermined…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The gap between university entry rates for disadvantaged students and their peers in England has reached their highest level since records began in 2005.Twenty-nine per cent of students who had received free school meals progressed to university by the age of 19, compared with 50 per cent of their peers, in the academic year 2022-23, according to government data. The disparity in the progression rate climbed to 21 percentage points — up from the all-time low of 17 percentage points in the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This article is an on-site version of Martin Sandbu’s Free Lunch newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Thursday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersA lot of ink — and pixel count — has been spilled on the possible minutiae of the upcoming UK Budget, the new Labour government’s first, due to be presented on Wednesday: from how different fiscal rules would give different estimates of the “headroom” available for…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Disposable vapes will be banned in England and Wales from next summer as part of a drive to protect children’s health and curb a “throwaway culture”, ministers have said. Single-use e-cigarettes, which cannot be reused or recharged, have soared in popularity among young people in recent years, with usage in England jumping more than 400 per cent between 2012 and 2023.On Thursday, the UK government introduced legislation to parliament setting out the ban and giving businesses until June 1 2025 to sell…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.When Rachel Reeves stands up in the House of Commons on October 30 to deliver her Budget, she faces a formidably difficult task. The UK chancellor must juggle the competing aims of attracting investment and spurring growth with the necessity of raising taxes to help repair the public finances — all without spooking the markets. Fortunately, Financial Times readers have gone before her — with mixed results. Decisions made in the FT’s Budget Game, where players concoct a strategy to relaunch the UK economy while…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Among the many unknowns of next week’s Budget, speculation is growing that chancellor Rachel Reeves is considering reducing the pension tax-free lump sum. Investment platforms and tax advisers say this possibility has led to a rush of customers looking to withdraw tax-free cash from their pension to avoid a Treasury tax grab.What is the tax-free lump sum?Currently, from age 55, you can usually take up to 25 per cent of your pension money without needing to pay tax. This is called the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK has dropped a requirement for a new men’s football regulator to consider “foreign and trade policy” when approving club takeovers, ahead of the bill being introduced in parliament on Thursday.The change “ensures” the regulator will be “fully independent” of government and industry, the Department for Culture Media and Sport said on Wednesday, following concerns from European football governing body Uefa and fan groups that it would lead to political “interference”. The draft football governance bill had included a clause requiring…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.England’s system for helping children with special educational needs is financially “unsustainable” despite a huge increase in funding over the past decade, the UK spending watchdog has found.The damning assessment by the National Audit Office follows a decade during which the number of children requiring additional support at school has more than doubled, plunging the system into crisis.The NAO report, released on Thursday, found government’s efforts to stabilise provision had been inadequate despite the Department for Education launching an improvement plan last…