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Jeremy Hunt has abolished the lifetime tax-free pensions allowance and introduced free childcare for youngsters under three in a budget aimed at getting people back to work.

The chancellor announced his budget plans on Wednesday to get older people back in work and to help parents, mainly women, who cannot afford to go back to work due to high childcare costs.

For older people – who he said he preferred to describe as “experienced” – Mr Hunt has increased the annual tax-free pension allowance and abolished the Lifetime Allowance.

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The changes to pensions are:

• Annual tax-free pension savings allowance increased by 50% from £40,000 to £60,000

• Lifetime Allowance on pension savings scrapped so people will now be allowed to put aside as much as they can in their private scheme without being taxed (currently a £1m threshold)

Read more on the budget:
Budget live: Hunt announces ‘crowd pleasers’ – as pension and childcare changes go further than expected
The key points of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s speech

Future rises to the state pension are now in question
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There will be no tax-free limit on private pensions

On childcare, Mr Hunt announced:

• Ratios of two-year-olds to staff at nurseries can be increased from 1:4 to 1:5 – this is optional

• Parents on Universal Credit who are moving into work will have their childcare costs paid upfront by the government

• The maximum Universal Credit parents can claim will be increased to £951 for one child and £1,630 for two children – an increase of almost 50%

• Schools and local authorities will be funded to increase wraparound care so parents can have their children looked after between 8am and 6pm by September 2026

• In households where all adults work at least 16 hours, every child from nine months old to school age will get 30 hours of free childcare per week by September 2025

There will be a staggered introduction:

• 15 hours of free care a week for two-year-olds, from April 2024

• 15 hours of free child care for all children from nine months and up, from September 2024

• The free child care will not apply to those who work less than 16 hours a week, those studying or training.

The timetable for free childcare may never be realised


Tamara Cohen

Tamara Cohen

Political correspondent

@tamcohen

Jeremy Hunt’s childcare announcement is the rabbit out of a hat it was billed to be – 30 free hours for children from the age of nine months to the start of school.

But before parents of toddlers get excited about saving some of the eyewatering costs, take a look at the timetable.

Working parents of two-year-olds will get half of that – 15 subsidised hours – in a year’s time, from April 2024.

An election is expected that summer or autumn, with a deadline of January 2025.

And the full policy – including the most expensive bit, which is free hours for babies who have the highest staff-to-child ratios at one adult for every three children under two – will not be delivered until well after the election, in September 2025.

If Labour are in power then, they will need to find the money to deliver it. Their shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has already said Labour’s plans for a modern childcare system would not involve the “free hours” system which she says fails parents and providers.

The Office for Budget Responsibility, which provided a financial forecast alongside the budget, said the childcare changes would mean around 60,000 parents of young children would enter employment by 2027-28.

Talking at a nursery after delivering the budget, Mr Hunt admitted many more nurseries and childminders are needed to fulfil the 30 hours commitment.

“We’re willing to start it as soon as possible, but the advice we’ve had is this is such a big change in the market that it wouldn’t be possible to do it overnight,” said the chancellor.

While the Tories lauded the announcements as Mr Hunt’s “rabbit out of the hat” moment of the budget, childcare providers had a mixed reaction.

Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said changing the staff-to-child ratios is “appalling” and it is an economic decision that parents and teachers do not want.

“It’s not just about economics, children are not commodities, we’re talking about children’s lives,” he told Sky News.

He added that there is currently not enough funding for three and four-year-olds, who are entitled to some free childcare already, so this will simply place more pressure on providers.

“They should have done this a long time ago, parents are on their knees, providers are on their knees,” he said.

Jeremy Hunt visited a nursery in Battersea after delivering the budget. Pic: Rory Arnold / No 10
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Jeremy Hunt visited a nursery in Battersea after delivering the budget. Pic: Rory Arnold / No 10

Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant then Screwed, said the campaign group is “really pleased in the significant investment” in the childcare sector as it will make “an enormous difference to parents who are really struggling to pay for those eyewatering fees”.

However, she said they are concerned about the strategy for workers who are “leaving in droves” due to being paid “appallingly badly” due to years of underfunding.

“Without the workforce, those places are impossible to deliver,” she told Sky News.

“There’s no point in rolling out free hours if we don’t ensure the providers can deliver them.”

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Mums react to free childcare news

Labour hit out at the pension plan, with Sir Keir Starmer saying: “The only permanent tax cut in the budget is for the richest 1%. How can that happen?”

He accused the Conservatives of a plan for “managed decline, Britain going backwards, the sick man of Europe once again”.

“After 13 years of Tory sticking plaster politics… working people are entitled to ask am I any better off than I was before?” he said.

“The resounding answer is ‘no’ – and they (Tories) know it.”

Mr Hunt said he had decided to make the pension changes in reaction to senior NHS clinicians saying unpredictable pension tax charges are making them leave the NHS early “just when they are needed most”.

“I have realised the issue goes wider than doctors. No one should be pushed out of the workforce for tax reasons,” he said.

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

The bosses of four of Britain’s biggest banks are secretly urging the chancellor to ditch the most significant regulatory change imposed after the 2008 financial crisis, warning her its continued imposition is inhibiting UK economic growth.

Sky News has obtained an explosive letter sent this week by the chief executives of HSBC Holdings, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK in which they argue that bank ring-fencing “is not only a drag on banks’ ability to support business and the economy, but is now redundant”.

The CEOs’ letter represents an unprecedented intervention by most of the UK’s major lenders to abolish a reform which cost them billions of pounds to implement and which was designed to make the banking system safer by separating groups’ high street retail operations from their riskier wholesale and investment banking activities.

Their request to Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, to abandon ring-fencing 15 years after it was conceived will be seen as a direct challenge to the government to take drastic action to support the economy during a period when it is forcing economic regulators to scrap red tape.

It will, however, ignite controversy among those who believe that ditching the UK’s most radical post-crisis reform risks exacerbating the consequences of any future banking industry meltdown.

In their letter to the chancellor, the quartet of bank chiefs told Ms Reeves that: “With global economic headwinds, it is crucial that, in support of its Industrial Strategy, the government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy removes unnecessary constraints on the ability of UK banks to support businesses across the economy and sends the clearest possible signal to investors in the UK of your commitment to reform.

“While we welcomed the recent technical adjustments to the ring-fencing regime, we believe it is now imperative to go further.

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“Removing the ring-fencing regime is, we believe, among the most significant steps the government could take to ensure the prudential framework maximises the banking sector’s ability to support UK businesses and promote economic growth.”

Work on the letter is said to have been led by HSBC, whose new chief executive, Georges Elhedery, is among the signatories.

His counterparts at Lloyds, Charlie Nunn; NatWest’s Paul Thwaite; and Mike Regnier, who runs Santander UK, also signed it.

While Mr Thwaite in particular has been public in questioning the continued need for ring-fencing, the letter – sent on Tuesday – is the first time that such a collective argument has been put so forcefully.

The only notable absentee from the signatories is CS Venkatakrishnan, the Barclays chief executive, although he has publicly said in the past that ring-fencing is not a major financial headache for his bank.

Other industry executives have expressed scepticism about that stance given that ring-fencing’s origination was largely viewed as being an attempt to solve the conundrum posed by Barclays’ vast investment banking operations.

The introduction of ring-fencing forced UK-based lenders with a deposit base of at least £25bn to segregate their retail and investment banking arms, supposedly making them easier to manage in the event that one part of the business faced insolvency.

Banks spent billions of pounds designing and setting up their ring-fenced entities, with separate boards of directors appointed to each division.

More recently, the Treasury has moved to increase the deposit threshold from £25bn to £35bn, amid pressure from a number of faster-growing banks.

Sam Woods, the current chief executive of the main banking regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority, was involved in formulating proposals published by the Sir John Vickers-led Independent Commission on Banking in 2011.

Legislation to establish ring-fencing was passed in the Financial Services Reform (Banking) Act 2013, and the regime came into effect in 2019.

In addition to ring-fencing, banks were forced to substantially increase the amount and quality of capital they held as a risk buffer, while they were also instructed to create so-called ‘living wills’ in the event that they ran into financial trouble.

The chancellor has repeatedly spoken of the need to regulate for growth rather than risk – a phrase the four banks hope will now persuade her to abandon ring-fencing.

Britain is the only major economy to have adopted such an approach to regulating its banking industry – a fact which the four bank chiefs say is now undermining UK competitiveness.

“Ring-fencing imposes significant and often overlooked costs on businesses, including SMEs, by exposing them to banking constraints not experienced by their international competitors, making it harder for them to scale and compete,” the letter said.

“Lending decisions and pricing are distorted as the considerable liquidity trapped inside the ring-fence can only be used for limited purposes.

“Corporate customers whose financial needs become more complex as they grow larger, more sophisticated, or engage in international trade, are adversely affected given the limits on services ring-fenced banks can provide.

“Removing ring-fencing would eliminate these cliff-edge effects and allow firms to obtain the full suite of products and services from a single bank, reducing administrative costs”.

In recent months, doubts have resurfaced about the commitment of Spanish banking giant Santander to its UK operations amid complaints about the costs of regulation and supervision.

The UK’s fifth-largest high street lender held tentative conversations about a sale to either Barclays or NatWest, although they did not progress to a formal stage.

HSBC, meanwhile, is particularly restless about the impact of ring-fencing on its business, given its sprawling international footprint.

“There has been a material decline in UK wholesale banking since ring-fencing was introduced, to the detriment of British businesses and the perception of the UK as an internationally orientated economy with a global financial centre,” the letter said.

“The regime causes capital inefficiencies and traps liquidity, preventing it from being deployed efficiently across Group entities.”

The four bosses called on Ms Reeves to use this summer’s Mansion House dinner – the City’s annual set-piece event – to deliver “a clear statement of intent…to abolish ring-fencing during this Parliament”.

Doing so, they argued, would “demonstrate the government’s determination to do what it takes to promote growth and send the strongest possible signal to investors of your commitment to the City and to strengthen the UK’s position as a leading international financial centre”.

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

The Post Office will next week unveil a £1.75bn deal with dozens of banks which will allow their customers to continue using Britain’s biggest retail network.

Sky News has learnt the next Post Office banking framework will be launched next Wednesday, with an agreement that will deliver an additional £500m to the government-owned company.

Banking industry sources said on Friday the deal would be worth roughly £350m annually to the Post Office – an uplift from the existing £250m-a-year deal, which expires at the end of the year.

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The sources added that in return for the additional payments, the Post Office would make a range of commitments to improving the service it provides to banks’ customers who use its branches.

Banks which participate in the arrangements include Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK.

Under the Banking Framework Agreement, the 30 banks and mutuals’ customers can access the Post Office’s 11,500 branches for a range of services, including depositing and withdrawing cash.

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The service is particularly valuable to those who still rely on physical cash after a decade in which well over 6,000 bank branches have been closed across Britain.

In 2023, more than £10bn worth of cash was withdrawn over the counter and £29bn in cash was deposited over the counter, the Post Office said last year.

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A new, longer-term deal with the banks comes at a critical time for the Post Office, which is trying to secure government funding to bolster the pay of thousands of sub-postmasters.

Reliant on an annual government subsidy, the reputation of the network’s previous management team was left in tatters by the Horizon IT scandal and the wrongful conviction of hundreds of sub-postmasters.

A Post Office spokesperson declined to comment ahead of next week’s announcement.

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Trump trade war: How UK figures show his tariff argument doesn’t add up

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Trump trade war: How UK figures show his tariff argument doesn't add up

As Chancellor Rachel Reeves meets her counterpart, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent to discuss an “economic agreement” between the two countries, the latest trade figures confirm three realities that ought to shape negotiations.

The first is that the US remains a vital customer for UK businesses, the largest single-nation export market for British goods and the third-largest import partner, critical to the UK automotive industry, already landed with a 25% tariff, and pharmaceuticals, which might yet be.

In 2024 the US was the UK’s largest export market for cars, worth £9bn to companies including Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley and Aston Martin, and accounting for more than 27% of UK automotive exports.

Little wonder the domestic industry fears a heavy and immediate impact on sales and jobs should tariffs remain.

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Chancellor’s trade deal red lines explained

American car exports to the UK by contrast are worth just £1bn, which may explain why the chancellor may be willing to lower the current tariff of 10% to 2.5%.

For UK medicines and pharmaceutical producers meanwhile, the US was a more than £6bn market in 2024. Currently exempt from tariffs, while Mr Trump and his advisors think about how to treat an industry he has long-criticised for high prices, it remains vulnerable.

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The second point is that the US is even more important for the services industry. British exports of consultancy, PR, financial and other professional services to America were worth £131bn last year.

That’s more than double the total value of the goods traded in the same direction, but mercifully services are much harder to hammer with the blunt tool of tariffs, though not immune from regulation and other “non-tariff barriers”.

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How US ports are coping with tariffs

The third point is that, had Donald Trump stuck to his initial rationale for tariffs, UK exporters should not be facing a penny of extra cost for doing business with the US.

The president says he slapped blanket tariffs on every nation bar Russia to “rebalance” the US economy and reverse goods trade ‘deficits’ – in which the US imports more than it exports to a given country.

Read more: Could Trump tariffs tip the world into recession?

That heavily contested argument might apply to Mexico, Canada, China and many other manufacturing nations, but it does not meaningfully apply to Britain.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show the US ran a small goods trade deficit with the UK in 2024 of £2.2bn, importing £59.3bn of goods against exports of £57.1bn.

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IMF downgrades UK growth forecast

Add in services trade, in which the UK exports more than double what it imports from the US, and the UK’s surplus – and thus the US ‘deficit’ – swells to nearly £78bn.

That might be a problem were it not for the US’ own accounts of the goods and services trade with Britain, which it says actually show a $15bn (£11.8bn) surplus with the UK.

You might think that they cannot both be right, but the ONS disagrees. The disparity is caused by the way the US Bureau of Economic Analysis accounts for services, as well as a range of statistical assumptions.

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“The presence of trade asymmetries does not indicate that either country is inaccurate in their estimation,” the ONS said.

That might be encouraging had Mr Trump not ignored his own arguments and landed the UK, like everyone else in the world, with a blanket 10% tariff on all goods.

Trade agreements are notoriously complex, protracted affairs, which helps explain why after nine years of trying the UK still has not got one with the US, and the Brexit deal it did with the EU against a self-imposed deadline has been proved highly disadvantageous.

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