Chancellor Rachel Reeves looking to ‘find £40bn’ in budget

Published

9 hours ago

October 16, 2024

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Rachel Reeves is looking to fill a £40bn black hole in the country’s finances, Sky News understands.

According to people close to the budget, the gap in funding identified by the chancellor is more than twice what was previously thought.

Politics latest: Stark warning issued over national insurance rise

Ms Reeves has previously said the Conservatives left the new government with a £22bn shortfall, requiring “tough decisions” like axing the winter fuel payment.

This has led to speculation Labour may introduce measures such as a national insurance increase for employers to raise more cash.

The Treasury does not comment on budget speculation.

According to the Financial Times, the £40bn figure represents the funding the chancellor needs to protect key government departments from real terms spending cuts, cover the impact of the £22bn overspend from the last administration and build up a fiscal buffer for the rest of parliament.

The paper said she was eyeing big tax rises to patch up the NHS in particular.

However, the government has left itself with little wiggle room after ruling out a rise in national insurance, income tax and VAT in its manifesto.

Ministers have since said that this meant not “increasing tax on working people” – leaving the door open for the employer element of national insurance to go up.

Budget talk all spin – and we should be used to it

Jon Craig

Chief political correspondent

@joncraig

The “black hole” just got deeper. Or so the chancellor claims.

After telling us for weeks that the funding gap was £22bn, Rachel Reeves says it’s almost double that: £40bn. Fact? Or political propaganda?

She’s told the cabinet the £22bn “black hole inheritance” from the Tories needed to be filled “just to keep public services standing still”.

And Sir Keir Starmer told ministers – at a “political cabinet” with no civil servants present – that the budget would see “tough decisions so we can invest in the future”.

In other words, if the chancellor is to avoid big spending cuts in front line services like health and education, there’ll have to be more unpopular tax rises.

The timing of this apparent deepening of the “black hole” is highly significant. It comes as Labour faces accusations of breaking its manifesto pledge not to increase national insurance.

The new £40bn figure has emerged just hours before Sir Keir faces Rishi Sunak at prime minister’s questions and a potentially embarrassing onslaught over the national insurance tax hike.

A conspiracy theorist might even suggest the new £40bn claim was a cynical attempt by Downing Street to divert attention from the row over the PM meeting Taylor Swift and the star’s blue-light escort.

Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt has already claimed the £22bn figure is a lie. But then George Osborne accused Labour of leaving a £12bn black hole when he became chancellor in 2010.

It’s all spin, of course. We should be used to it by now. Reeves also told the cabinet the government can’t turn around 14 years of decline in one year or one budget.

Yet at the same time she said the budget would “protect working people, fix the NHS and rebuild Britain”. That’s an ambitious boast, if the “black hole” really is £40bn.

A one percentage point increase in the Class 1 rate could raise £8.45bn over the 2025 to 2026 tax year, and a two percentage point hike could raise £16.9bn, according to data compiled by HMRC and EY.

Meanwhile, introducing national insurance on employer pension contributions could raise around £17bn per year if taxed at the same 13.8% rate, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

Experts have cautioned that any increase in employer national insurance would mean higher costs for businesses, which could impact their staff and customers.

Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, told Sky News on Tuesday night that the tax rise could lead to less pay rises and fewer jobs.

The influential thinktank estimates Ms Reeves may need to raise up to £25bn from tax increases if she wants to keep spending rising with national income, and honour Labour’s pledge not to return Britain to austerity.

As well as tax rises, there is also speculation Ms Reeves could change her fiscal rules to enable more borrowing.

It is thought the chancellor could change how debt is calculated, which could in turn alter how much debt the UK officially has and give Ms Reeves room to borrow more.

UK

Two children among five dead in M6 crash

Published

29 mins ago

October 16, 2024

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Two children among five dead in M6 crash

Five people, including two children, have been killed in a crash on the M6.

The two-car collision involved a Toyota and a Skoda and happened on the northbound motorway, past Tebay services in Cumbria, at 4.04pm on Tuesday, police said.

Four people – a man, a woman and two children from Glasgow – who were travelling in the Toyota were pronounced dead at the scene.

The Skoda driver, a man from Cambridgeshire, also died in the crash.

Cumbria Constabulary said a third child in the Toyota was taken to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle with serious injuries.

A stretch of the M6 northbound between J36 and J39 was closed following the crash but reopened fully in the early hours of Wednesday.

A force spokesperson said: “The families of those involved are being supported by specially trained officers.”

UK

End-of-life care must be fixed before any assisted dying legislation, charities say

Published

9 hours ago

October 16, 2024

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End-of-life care must be fixed before any assisted dying legislation, charities say

Three and a half years ago, Tim Daly was given just a few months to live. Born with learning disabilities, he later developed cancer, which kept returning.

Despite being very sick, Tim can still live at home with his mum Valerie, because of support from his palliative care nurse Phoebe Mooney.

“It’s really sad to see him deteriorate,” Phoebe says during a visit to Tim.

“When I first started seeing him he was independently mobile in his wheelchair. He would take lots of videos. He’d be super, super chatty.”

It is clear Tim and Phoebe share a special bond, but working in such an emotionally demanding role can be challenging.

“I’m not going to lie, I do cry quite a lot at work,” Phoebe says. “Particularly when things don’t go so well, which they don’t at times.”

Tim’s mother Valerie Daly is 82 and says she wouldn’t be able to keep Tim at home without the support she gets from St Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham, southeast London, where Phoebe works.

“I couldn’t do this without them,” she says. “It’s just knowing that there’s somebody there. Somebody who cares. Somebody who knows Tim.”

The support Valerie and Tim get is far from guaranteed across the UK.

As MPs consider legalising assisted dying, with a bill being introduced to parliament today, the quality of the country’s end-of-life care is being questioned.

“It’s really important we’re talking about funding for hospices at the same time,” says Jan Noble, the director of quality and innovation at St Christopher’s.

“Because people need to know that they’re going to get the right symptom control and support if they are approaching the end of life. And actually it’s not all about assisted dying.

“People are fearful because at the moment hospices throughout the country haven’t got the adequate funding, which means care can be a postcode lottery.”

St Christopher’s Hospice neither supports nor opposes a change in the law, but the hospice sector is a strong voice in the debate.

Hospices rely on charity to survive, with the government providing only around a third of their funding.

The sector has concerns about whether the health system could cope with the additional pressure that assisted dying would bring.

“While it’s not for us to take a view either way, what we would say is that this is a very fundamental change to consider introducing into a system which is already under really significant stress,” says Charlie King, deputy director of external affairs at Hospice UK.

“We’ve got hospices who are cutting back their services already, making frontline staff redundant, because they’re no longer able to fund those services.

“Whether or not assisted dying is introduced by this government, we must fix the end-of-life care system in the UK,” he said.

“This government has inherited huge challenges in the hospice sector, as well as a £22bn black hole in the public finances, so these problems will take time to fix,” a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said.

“Whilst the majority of palliative and end-of-life care is provided by the NHS, we recognise the vital role voluntary organisations including hospices play in providing support to people at end of life and their families.

“We are determined to shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, to ensure patients and their families receive personalised care in the most appropriate setting, and hospices will have a big role to play in that shift.”

Lynda Browne, 59, has experienced the best and worst of end-of-life care.

Her mother died peacefully and comfortably at a Marie Curie Hospice, but her aunt Mary chose to die at home and Lynda was devastated by the lack of care she received.

“We had to buy her incontinence pads, we had to buy different creams because the deliveries weren’t regular or there was nothing available or you couldn’t get through,” she says.

“We had to chase everyone for everything and it’s just so tiring all the time having to fight.”

It’s a problem palliative care doctors say needs to be urgently addressed.

“We only get partial funding from the NHS,” says Dr Sarah Wells, medical director for the Marie Curie Hospice West Midlands.

“We’re having to rely on fun runs and bake sales and our charity shops to raise money to provide great end-of-life care for people.”

Marie Curie, like St Christopher’s and Hospice UK, has a neutral position on assisted dying.

“We need to be talking about death, dying and bereavement,” says Dr Wells. “What we’re not neutral on is the need for sustainable funding.”

UK

Sexual misconduct a ‘problem right across NHS’ as whistleblowing site is launched

Published

9 hours ago

October 16, 2024

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Sexual misconduct a 'problem right across NHS' as whistleblowing site is launched

NHS staff working in England will be able to anonymously report their colleagues for sexual harassment from today, as health bosses warned inappropriate behaviour “will not be tolerated”.

The health service also plans to bring in more pastoral support, and even special leave, for people who have suffered sexual misconduct at work.

It comes after a Sky News investigation heard harassment and assault is “rife” in the ambulance service.

Many dozens of paramedics have now spoken up about a culture in which being groped or being the victim of inappropriate comments and jokes is commonplace.

Some women even claimed to have been threatened with rape, or pressured into sexual acts to keep their jobs, while one female paramedic tried to take her own life after being locked in the back of an ambulance and sexually assaulted by a colleague.

Whistleblowers also claimed when they raised concerns they were punished or ostracised.

But NHS England has warned that sexual misconduct is “a problem right across the health service”, and other workforces have come under scrutiny.

In a survey last September almost a third of female surgeons who responded said they had been sexually assaulted by a colleague, and two thirds claimed to have been the target of sexual harassment.

NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard called this behaviour “unacceptable” and said that from today an online reporting tool will allow staff to report abuse anonymously. The reports will then be assessed by HR teams and investigated.

The NHS also plans to bring in pastoral support for people who have experienced sexual abuse, with special leave available if needed. Staff are also being urged to complete new training on what to do if they see or are told about sexual misconduct.

Amanda Pritchard added: “We must do everything in our power to ensure our staff feel able to speak up, and have absolute confidence that they will be given the support they need when they do.

“There is absolutely no place for sexual misconduct or abuse of any kind within the NHS – a place where staff come to work every day to provide compassionate care and support to others, and we know that women are more likely to be affected – this is unacceptable, and we must not tolerate it.”

The NHS said the new policy covers all sexual misconduct at work – whether in an NHS setting, a virtual environment or elsewhere.

It can include many things from sexual assault or rape to sexual comments or jokes, showing sexual pictures and staring at someone in a sexual way.

In this year’s NHS Staff Survey, almost 26,000 staff said they’d been the victim of assault, touching, sexualised or inappropriate conversation or jokes from their colleagues.

Dr Chelcie Jerwick is the co-founder of Surviving in Scrubs, a campaign group that highlights sexual harassment in the NHS. She believes many more cases go unreported but that the anonymous system is a great way to give people options to come forward.

“I think that there is definitely a culture of tolerance of these behaviours and attitudes within the NHS.

“I know from my own personal experience of trying to raise complaints that it can be really difficult, not only in order to kind of speak up, but also the logistics of how you raise a complaint. Is that to your consultant, your line manager? Do you go directly to HR?

“It’s really hard to navigate and it can be really scary. So, it’s really great to see NHS England providing this anonymous way of reporting now.”