Budget 2023: Who are the winners and losers? How three real households are affected

Published

1 year ago

March 16, 2023

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No matter what’s going on in your life, something in today’s financial statement from Jeremy Hunt will have a real impact on how much money – if anything – is left for you each month to spend on the things you want.

Sky News has analysed the real budgets of three different households to see whether they end up better or worse off.

Linda is going to be better off overall, thanks in part to the continuation of the energy bill price cap, although it might not feel like that, as the government has not extended the Energy Bills Support Scheme.

We’ve not included that in our calculations as it was a planned change rather than anything that came out of today’s announcements.

“We were really relying on that £67 payment, which we’re going to be losing. It’s a lot of money. The cap is good but they’re taking it out with the other hand. I can’t see how I’m going to be better off at all really. I’m gutted,” she told Sky News.

Click here for our budget calculator to see if you are better or worse off

Linda receives a private pension and a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) to help with health issues that forced her to take early retirement in 2017, aged 55.

Linda’s husband Wayne works full-time for an electrical engineering company, and they also receive rent from Linda’s 38-year-old son Anthony, who moved back in last year due to the rising cost of living. Linda also cares for her grandson Jamie for two days in the week, to help out with childcare costs.

The new energy cap, Linda’s biggest saving, helps all households. When the government first introduced the Energy Price Guarantee it said that at this point it would rise from £2,500 to £3,000, for a typical annual bill, to ease pressure on public funds. It’s now set to stay at £2,500.

Linda is benefiting from an uplift in her disability support payments, however, adding to extra support received last year.

Frozen tax thresholds mean that Linda’s husband will effectively pay an extra £170 in tax next year. As his salary rises with inflation, the amount he can take home before paying tax does not. More on that later on.

Mike ends up worse off overall. He doesn’t mind so much as he’s in a comfortable situation, but was hoping to hear more support for those struggling.

“My concern is not for myself, I’m comfortably off. If fuel bills stay as they are I can survive, if they go up I can take the hit a little bit. People here [in Burnley] on minimum wage can’t afford to heat their homes or feed their kids.

“I was hoping for more support for those people rather than myself. I will rise over the bumps and I have a retirement coming up in a few years.”

Mike owns his own home and is the landlord for two others. He’s comfortable, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune from rising costs.

“Our day-to-day costs have doubled in the last 12 months, fuel costs have gone up 50%. And Liz Truss’s intervention cost me about £60,000 in lost pension pot,” he said.

Like Linda, he benefits from the energy price cap, but he loses out more from the tax threshold freeze. It will cost him more than £300 in real terms over the next 12 months.

Why is the tax threshold freeze so significant? As inflation rises so, typically, do wages. But in real terms, the value of money becomes less.

£10,000 will buy you about 10% less stuff than it did last year, for example.

In the UK you can earn £12,570 without paying tax. Typically that number, and the number at which you start paying a higher rate of tax (£50,270) rise each year to account for the fact that the money is worth less.

They haven’t this year and that affects all taxpayers, but could cost thousands for higher earners. It’s effectively a stealth tax.

Mike’s main concerns around the budget, however, are for those on lower incomes in his area, who he’s seen struggling to pay for the basics or even to feed their children.

“The stabilisation of the tax rate will cost me a bit of money, but I can tighten my belt a bit. People around here like Lianne don’t have more belt to tighten.”

Lianne will end up better off than last year, mainly thanks to the fuel duty freeze. Her husband Damian is also self-employed, he has a removals company so spends a lot on diesel. Once more though, it doesn’t feel like things are getting any easier.

“It’s really testing times, especially being self-employed. I feel we’re always the ones left behind. You’re trying to do well for yourselves but you’re backpedalling all the time,” she told Sky News.

“The government needs to step up and help the working person. Costs are going up and up and up across the board and they make it sound like – because they’re keeping it at a level rate, not increasing it anymore – they’re doing us a favour, but they’re not. People are struggling.”

Lianne and Damian have a four-year-old daughter who started school this year. They won’t benefit from today’s announcement about childcare support.

Before she started school they paid £100 for two days of childcare a week. Lianne had to go part-time with her work because it was unaffordable to pay for more.

What the family lose from the tax threshold freeze is offset by what they gain from an uplift in child benefit, energy prices and fuel prices.

Fuel duty is the amount of tax that the government charges drivers when they buy petrol. When petrol prices started rising the government lowered the amount of tax it gets, per litre, but planned to raise it back again.

The government announced today that they will no longer do that, which is especially important to Lianne’s husband Damian with his driving-intensive job. Raising the duty as planned would have cost the family over £200 more a year.

Prices are still significantly higher than they were before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however.

“People are already at breaking point. For people on the borderline, if things get any worse I dread to think what’s to come,” Lianne added.

Follow more of Sky News’s reaction to the budget on our live page.

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Business

Marks & Spencer’s website and app go down

Published

2 hours ago

May 18, 2024

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Marks & Spencer's website and app go down

Marks & Spencer’s website and app has not been working for several hours, with a message telling shoppers “you can’t shop with us right now”.

“We’re working hard to be back online as soon as possible,” it adds.

All the menus and images have disappeared apart from one showing a model in a green jacket.

Customers trying to use the app got the message: “Sorry you can’t shop through the app right now. We’re busy making some planned changes, but will be back soon.”

The site is understood to have been down for several hours.

Replying to one customer on X, the retailer said: “We’re experiencing some technical issues but we are working on it.”

M&S is the latest high street name to have technical issues – last month some Sainsbury’s shoppers had problems with their online orders.

The outage comes a few days before M&S is expected to reveal a big jump in annual profits.

It’s been a successful year for the brand, with strong sales across the business following a turnaround plan that has included store closures and cost cutting.

Business

Employees at fintech giant Revolut to cash in with $500m share sale

Published

6 hours ago

May 18, 2024

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Employees at fintech giant Revolut to cash in with 0m share sale

Bosses at Revolut, Britain’s biggest fintech, are drawing up plans to allow employees to cash in with a sale of stock valued at hundreds of millions of pounds.

Sky News has learnt that the banking and payments services provider is lining up investment bankers to coordinate a secondary share sale worth in the region of $500m (£394m).

Morgan Stanley, the Wall Street bank, is expected to be engaged to work on the proposed stock offering, which will take place later this year.

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City sources said this weekend that Nik Storonsky, Revolut’s co-founder and chief executive, was determined to seek a valuation of at least the $33bn (£26bn) it secured in a primary funding round in 2021.

“This will not be a down-round,” said one person familiar with Revolut’s thinking.

Although the fintech, which has more than 40 million customers, is not planning to raise new capital as part of the transaction, any sizeable share sale will still be closely watched across the global fintech sector.

It is expected to be restricted to company employees.

Revolut ranks among the world’s largest financial technology businesses, with revenue virtually doubling last year to around £1.7bn, according to figures expected to be published in the coming months.

Founded in 2015, it has experienced a string of regulatory and compliance challenges, with reports last year highlighting its release of funds from accounts flagged by the National Crime Agency as suspicious.

The company’s growth has taken place at breakneck speed, with customer numbers soaring from 16.4m at the point of the Series E fundraising nearly three years ago.

Insiders argued that despite the protracted downturn in tech valuations over the last two years, Revolut’s relentless expansion would easily justify it maintaining its status as Britain’s most valuable fintech.

Monzo, the UK-based digital bank, recently confirmed a Sky News story that it had closed a funding round worth nearly £500m, including backing from an arm of Google’s owner, Alphabet, and a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund.

Elsewhere, however, the funding landscape has been bleaker, with a growing number of tech companies which had attracted unicorn valuations of more than $1bn now struggling to stay afloat.

Revolut has allotted stock options to many of its 10,000 employees as part of their compensation packages, although it was unclear how many would be eligible to dispose of equity in the transaction later this year.

A source close to the company said it had had numerous expressions of interest from prospective investors.

Revolut’s current shareholders include SoftBank’s Vision Fund and Tiger Global.

News of the proposed share sale comes as Revolut’s investors continue to await positive news about its application for a UK banking licence.

The company applied to regulators to become a bank in Britain more than three years ago, but has so far failed to secure approval.

Mr Storonsky has been publicly critical of the delay, and last year questioned the approach of British regulators and politicians, as he suggested that he would not contemplate a listing on the London Stock Exchange.

An initial public offering of Revolut appears to still be some way off, although it would not surprise investors or industry peers if it initiated a listing process in the next couple of years.

One person close to Revolut said board members were among those expected to participate in the secondary share sale, although further details were unclear this weekend.

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The company is chaired by Martin Gilbert, the City veteran who has faced governance and performance challenges at Assetco, the London-listed asset manager he runs.

Its other directors include Michael Sherwood, the former Goldman Sachs executive who was jointly responsible for its operations outside the US and who was regarded as one of the most skilled traders of his generation.

An external shareholder in the company said the exclusion of non-employees from the deal could draw criticism from some investors.

Revolut has conducted secondary share sales of this kind in the past, including after its 2021 Series E round.

This weekend, Revolut declined to comment.

Business

Ex-Post Office head of IT says Paula Vennells ‘hoped to avoid’ inquiry – and reveals she blocked her number

Published

2 days ago

May 16, 2024

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Ex-Post Office head of IT says Paula Vennells 'hoped to avoid' inquiry - and reveals she blocked her number

A former Post Office executive has said she was forced to block ex-boss Paula Vennells’ phone number after the ex-CEO called multiple times asking for help to avoid an independent inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal.

Lesley Sewell, previously the company’s head of IT, told the Post Office inquiry on Thursday that former CEO Ms Vennells had reached out to her four times between 2020 and 2021.

Ms Sewell said that she blocked Ms Vennells’ number due to discomfort with the contact.

In her witness statement to the probe, Ms Sewell said that one of Ms Vennells’ emails referenced the need to fill in memory gaps regarding Horizon and “Project Sparrow”, a committee addressing issues with forensic accountants who identified flaws in the accounting system.

“Paula contacted me on four occasions in total. I recall blocking her number after the last call as I did not feel comfortable with her contacting me,” Ms Sewell said.

“I had not spoken to Paula since I had left POL [Post Office Limited] in 2015.”

According to Ms Sewell’s testimony, former chief executive Ms Vennells said that she had “been asked at short notice” to appear before a parliamentary select committee on “all things Horizon/Sparrow and need to plug some memory gaps”.

Ms Sewell says Ms Vennells added: “My hope is this might help avoid an independent inquiry but to do so, I need to be well prepared.”

Ms Sewell, who struggled to contain her emotions and broke down in tears while giving her oath at the start of her inquiry evidence, was offered support and breaks as needed by chairman Sir Wyn Williams.

Sir Wyn told the former executive: “Ms Sewell, I appreciate this may be upsetting for you, Ms Price will ask you a number of questions in a proper and sensible manner, but if at any time you feel you need a break, just let me know, all right?”

The Post Office has faced significant scrutiny following the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office which highlighted the Horizon IT scandal.

The faulty system led to the prosecution of more than 700 sub-postmasters between 1999 and 2015, with many still awaiting full compensation despite government announcements regarding payouts for those with quashed convictions.