Financial news

• Reeves may have to find further cuts and tax hikes amid economic gloom

  27-03-2025 20:19 via theguardian.com
  
  Rising costs and global uncertainty may force chancellor to turn to pensioners and wealthier taxpayersMinisters may have to target pensioners and wealthier taxpayers at the autumn budget, as senior government figures voiced fears brutal welfare reforms would still not go far enough to tackle rising costs.The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned the chancellor may be forced to consider a freeze on tax thresholds, hikes to capital gains and potentially pension taxes. Continue reading...
  
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• Why Trump’s 25% tariffs on autos could backfire | Steven Greenhouse

  27-03-2025 20:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Nearly half of the cars sold in the US are imported and Trump’s 25% tariff will add at least $6,000 to the sticker price of the average car, industry experts sayAfter two months of flip-flopping on tariffs, imposing them one day and often suspending them the next, Donald Trump gunned the accelerator of his trade war on Wednesday by announcing a 25% tariff on autos and auto parts imported into the United States. That’s a very big deal, and while the president insists this hefty import
  
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• Clean energy superpower – and now defence superpower. Can the UK really be both? | Nils Pratley

  27-03-2025 19:46 via theguardian.com
  
  The government’s plan to ramp up defence spending means relying on carbon-intensive industries – and those won’t be the only policy compromises they have to makeThe UK will become a “defence industrial superpower”, said the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in Wednesday’s spring statement, an ambition that will involve using much more steel, one assumes.Now comes news that the Chinese owner of the UK’s second largest steel plant may close its two blast furnaces
  
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• The Guardian view on child poverty: Labour must advance from a bleak base | Editorial

  27-03-2025 19:41 via theguardian.com
  About a third of children were living in deprivation even before this week’s benefit cuts. This appalling situation can’t go onA record 4.5 million children in the UK were growing up in poverty in the year to April 2024, according to figures released on Thursday, which provide a chilling backdrop to the government’s newly announced benefit cuts. Staff at a Blackpool charity, Disability First, have received “terrified phone calls” as claimants struggle to understand
  
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• Shameless welfare cuts are a betrayal of Labour voters | Letters

  27-03-2025 18:46 via theguardian.com
  Readers express their dismay at Rachel Reeves’s spring statement, with some lifelong party members feeling no longer able to support itMany Labour supporters, including myself, have waited a decade and a half for Labour to return to government and bring about a sea change in the governance of the country. We are now beginning to wonder why we bothered. Labour in opposition promised to ensure that the public would see a significant improvement in essential public services and in their econo
  
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• Reeves could tax pensions and wealth if economy worsens, says IFS

  27-03-2025 18:09 via theguardian.com
  
  Chancellor may have to reconsider pledge not to raise taxes in light of ‘risky and changing world’, thinktank saysPensioners and wealthy people could be the target of tax increases at Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget if the drastically worsening economic backdrop fails to improve, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.After the chancellor’s spring statement featured deep cuts to welfare to meet her fiscal targets, the UK’s leading experts on the public financ
  
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• Martin Lewis urges customers to grab British Gas 13% off deal by 5pm on Friday

  27-03-2025 18:04 via express.co.uk
  
  The MoneySavingExpert founder says the deal is available to both new and existing British Gas customers.
  
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• Martin Lewis gives four-word verdict on Rachel Reeves ‘£500 better off’ claim

  27-03-2025 18:01 via express.co.uk
  
  Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis delivered his verdict on the Chancellor Rachel Reeves' spring statement claims.
  
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• Ben Jennings on the spring statement and child poverty – cartoon

  27-03-2025 18:00 via theguardian.com
  
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• Rachel Reeves unveils 'hidden pension benefit' for millions in Budget

  27-03-2025 17:37 via express.co.uk
  
  The changes should positively benefit the workplace pensions of those who are impacted.
  
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• DWP PIP changes from April as claimants handed £9,747

  27-03-2025 17:15 via express.co.uk
  
  The DWP is increasing the amount it pays to people who claim the maximum PIP amounts from April.
  
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• Reeves’s economic woes may force state pension review as pensioner welfare spending soars

  27-03-2025 16:55 via express.co.uk
  
  The "biggest portion" of welfare spending is on pensioners, which could make it a prime target to cut borrowing costs further.
  
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• Rachel Reeves could move to hike this 1 tax in her next Autumn Budget

  27-03-2025 16:05 via express.co.uk
  
  Her first fiscal plan in October 2024 laid out an initial rise from 10% to 18% for basic-rate taxpayers, and from 20% to 24% for higher-rate taxpayers.
  
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• Major inheritance tax change in Rachel Reeves's spring statement has Brits seething

  27-03-2025 15:56 via express.co.uk
  
  The Chancellor's spring statement has been met with a scathing response from Brits, who have hit out at the 'unfair' change that is set to hit in 2027.
  
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• Planning to pass on an inheritance? Five steps you must take for your children

  27-03-2025 15:44 via express.co.uk
  
  A mind-boggling amount of money is set to be transferred from one generation to the next.
  
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• Rachel Reeves faces 'huge' state pension age decision – saves £10bn with just one change

  27-03-2025 14:52 via express.co.uk
  
  Chancellor Rachel Reeves has left nation's finances on a knife edge and the state pension age may have to rise earlier as a result.
  
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• How countries cheat their net zero carbon targets – video

  27-03-2025 12:54 via theguardian.com
  
  Net zero is a target that countries should be striving for to stop the climate crisis. But beyond the buzzword, it is a complex scientific concept – and if we get it wrong, the planet will keep heating.Biodiversity and environment reporter Patrick Greenfield explains how a loophole in the 2015 Paris climate agreement allows countries to cheat their net zero targets through creative accounting, and how scientists want us to fix it Continue reading...
  
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• Reeves’s statement will leave poorest £500 a year worse off, finds thinktank

  27-03-2025 09:48 via theguardian.com
  
  Resolution Foundation says ‘outlook for living standards remains bleak’ after chancellor’s cuts to welfareUK politics live – latest updatesLower-income households are on track to become £500 a year poorer by the end of the decade as a result of the chancellor’s spring statement, according to analysis by a leading thinktank.The Resolution Foundation said a combination of weak economic growth over the next five years and benefit cuts that fall disproportionately
  
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• School dinner payment app criticised for £10 refund fee

  27-03-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  After pulling out of the market Squid is charging parents who want to withdraw their remaining fundsA payments company that was used by parents to pay for school dinners has drawn criticism for charging them £10 to withdraw the remaining funds in their accounts after it pulled out of the market.Squid, which was used by 600 schools around the UK to take payments, stopped its service earlier this month after announcing in February that the accounts would be ending. Continue reading...
  
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• Ofgem’s energy price cap doesn’t cover our LPG supply

  27-03-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  We’ve already experienced a big jump in the cost of gas in Mid Wales and are worried it will soon be even higherI read that the energy price cap is going up again in April and people are struggling to pay their bills, but I can’t find any information relating to homes with bulk LPG tanks.Does anybody care about us? Is there any control over the spiralling cost of buying it? Continue reading...
  
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• Rachel Reeves swears this is not a return to austerity. What matters is that it feels like one | Gaby Hinsliff

  27-03-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  The ‘party of change’ says it’s bound by fiscal rules. What voters hear is that all governments are the same, and things will never get betterIt was change that won it. That was the single word to which Labour eventually boiled down all its complex ambitions; the six-letter slogan plastered triumphantly across its manifesto, because by the summer of 2024 change was pretty much the only thing the people of an exhausted country could all agree on. What kind of change exactly had
  
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• Surging cost of cocoa leads UK shoppers to shell out more for smaller Easter eggs

  27-03-2025 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Prices of some chocolate products have risen by 50% in a year while many have also shrunk in size, Which? reportsShoppers are shelling out for smaller eggs this Easter as shrinkflation takes a bite out of the favourite seasonal treat.The price of eggs made by big names including Cadbury, Mars and Terry’s have risen by as much as 50% in some cases while some have also shrunk in size, according to research by consumer champion Which?. When pack sizes are reduced and prices stay the same, or
  
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