“Liz Truss will have to find £62 billion in savings even to meet her looser fiscal rules, according to analysis warning that painful cuts to public services will be needed to balance the books. Cuts of 15 per cent to all other government departments would be required if the NHS and defence were protected, alongside a benefits squeeze and paring back of investment plans, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates. After Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, brought forward the date of his medium-term fiscal plan to the end of this month to try to reassure the markets, the think tank is warning him against “politically motivated wishful thinking” that higher growth would avert the need for deep cuts.” – The Times
>Today: David Willetts’ column: Ten ideas for getting Truss’s growth project back on track
“Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is to rush forward his new debt-cutting plan — and official forecasts — to October 31, as he attempts to prove he can get a grip on the public finances and fill in a fiscal hole estimated at tens of billions of pounds. But financial markets remain highly nervous and some senior Conservatives believe Kwarteng will struggle to come up with a plausible medium-term debt reduction plan in time for the Halloween statement. “The sums don’t add up,” said a former Tory Treasury minister, arguing that massive public spending cuts would be politically impossible. “You can do it on the back of a fag packet. It’s not going to work.” The Bank of England also failed to settle investor nerves on Monday.” – FT
>Yesterday: Sir Julian Brazier in Comment: Ministers need to cut public spending. Here are three ways in which they could start.
“Liz Truss has overruled Kwasi Kwarteng and blocked his plan to bring in an outsider to run the Treasury. James Bowler, a Treasury insider with 20 years’ experience in the department, was unveiled as permanent secretary. Mr Kwarteng had wanted to bring in Antonia Romeo, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, because it was felt she would have shaken up the “Treasury orthodoxy” that the Prime Minister has criticised. However, it appeared that Ms Truss had cold feet and has instead chosen a civil servant whose roots in the Treasury are so deep that he will be seen as the continuity candidate.” – Daily Telegraph
“The work and pensions secretary is preparing to argue in favour of raising benefits in line with inflation at a cabinet meeting today at which Liz Truss is expected to begin a climbdown on her desire for a real-terms cut. Chloe Smith, who will take a formal decision on benefit increases later this month, is ready to make clear that she plans to ensure they rise in line with inflation to “protect the most vulnerable”. Yesterday Sajid Javid, a former chancellor, joined the ranks of senior Tories who are calling for benefits to rise with inflation, in the latest sign that Truss will be forced to back down by a groundswell of opposition in her party.” – The Times
>Yesterday:
“Nigerian migrants face tougher rules on how many relatives they can bring to the UK under Suella Braverman’s plans to cut net migration. Government sources said the home secretary was considering tightening the rules on dependants after Home Office immigration figures showed a “surprising inconsistency” across different nationalities coming to the UK to work and study. Nigerian citizens accounted for 40 per cent of all dependants who accompanied foreign students in the 12 months to June. This was despite Nigerian students making up only 7 per cent of all foreign students over the period.” – The Times
“Brexit architect Lord Frost will today warn Liz Truss not to surrender to Brussels by giving EU judges a continued say in Northern Ireland forever. Talks between the EU and UK will restart this week aimed at ending overzealous Brexit checks on goods flowing into the province from the UK mainland. On Monday the Sun revealed the new PM is prepared to give the European Courts of Justice a role in overseeing new loosened trade terms in a bid to break the deadlock. No10 yesterday confirmed the the ECJ’s powers in Northern Ireland trade are up for discussion – but insisted the EU could not be the “final arbiter” in any disputes.” – The Sun
>Today: ToryDiary: The Northern Ireland Protocol. The ERG insists that the Government cannot “park the issue of ECJ authority”.
>Yesterday: Howard Flight’s column: The Enterprise Investment Scheme has been a success. Brexit gives us the chance to strengthen it.
“How has it come to this? The satanic state of the polls is the obvious starting point. It would be a tall order to expect Conservative MPs to put up with 30-point deficits even in service to a project they had pledged to support at an election – which in this case, they did not. Beneath the dismay is a growing suspicion that there simply isn’t a viable Truss project at all. The core of the problem is simple: in order to calm the markets, Kwasi Kwarteng has pledged to balance his £43bn of unfunded tax cuts with cuts to public spending. Yet no politically viable path to cuts on that scale exists.” – The Guardian
>Yesterday: Peter Franklin’s column: What do we owe to Truss?
“Ministers have drawn up plans to exempt developers from having to build affordable homes, to scrap environmental protections and to allow people to add extensions without permission. Simon Clarke, the levelling-up secretary, has written to Liz Truss with proposals designed to boost house-building and drive economic growth. One of the central measures is a rise in the threshold at which affordable homes must be built, from developments with ten houses to those with 40 or even 50 houses. This would reduce the number of affordable homes built by up to a fifth, but the government believes it would provide a boost to small and medium-sized developers.” – The Times
>Yesterday: Nicholas Boys Smith in Local Government: Scrap this absurd windows regulation that makes rooms darker
>Today: Eleanor Cox in Local Government: London has particular housing pressures – so it needs particular solutions
“Up to £20bn of investment in renewable energy is under threat from Liz Truss’s plans to effectively ban solar farms on agricultural land in England, the industry has warned. The prime minister, who is a longstanding critic of solar panels installed on farmland, is expected to approve measures that would dramatically curb the rollout of the fast-growing technology, despite reservations from both the Treasury and the business department. “If the plan were implemented it would threaten 30GW plus of projects currently being scoped for the second half of the decade — this could be over £20bn of capital investment into the UK energy sector,” said Chris Hewett, chief executive of the industry trade body Solar Energy UK.” – FT
More:
“Prime Minister Liz Truss will join G7 leaders and President Zelensky today as Putin threatens nuclear warfare. She will ask countries to maintain biting sanctions and call for a full meeting of NATO leaders in the coming days… The leaders will also discuss the global energy crisis precipitated by Putin’s actions during the gathering today. G7 is currently working to finalise and implement an international cap on the price of Russian oil, which will further damage Putin’s revenue stream. Zelensky will address G7 leaders in the virtual meeting at 1pm. The crisis talks come after Moscow launched a massive missile and drone barrage in retaliation for Ukraine’s attack on a bridge linking Russia with Crimea.” – The Sun
“Ministers are expected to break a promise to announce an action plan to tackle smoking, in their latest controversial U-turn on public health, Whitehall insiders say. The government had committed several times to publish a tobacco control plan “later this year”. However, the health secretary, Thérèse Coffey, does not intend to honour that promise, according to officials with knowledge of her intentions. Coffey, who is also the deputy prime minister, smokes and has previously accepted hospitality from the tobacco industry. Since becoming an MP in 2010 she has voted in the Commons against an array of measures to restrict smoking…” – The Guardian
>Today: James Cartlidge MP in Comment: My role in designing the Health and Social Care Levy. And why we now need tax breaks for non-NHS healthcare.
“The minister sacked by Liz Truss over a claim of “serious misconduct” has accused the prime minister of breaching natural justice. Conor Burns was dismissed as a trade minister and had the Tory whip suspended on Friday over a complaint relating to his behaviour in a hotel bar at the Conservative Party conference. However Burns, 50, who denies wrongdoing, said that he still had not been informed of the nature of the allegation he faces… The incident is understood to have taken place in the Hyatt Regency Birmingham on Monday night. Government sources initially said that no complaint had been made and suggested that the behaviour had been “handsy” but consensual. A complaint was then lodged on Thursday but not by the man with whom Burns had the interaction.” – The Times
“Angela Rayner’s boyfriend has been blocked from running as a Labour MP in a ballot of party members. Sam Tarry, who has served as MP for Ilford South since 2019, was deselected on Monday night as the party’s candidate for the next election by members in his constituency. Mr Tarry sparked controversy in July when he attended a rail union picket in defiance of an order from Sir Keir Starmer not to join strikes. He is a close ally of Ms Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, and the pair have been romantically linked since her separation from Mark Rayner, a union boss.” – Daily Telegraph
More:
“Nicola Sturgeon has doubled down on her plan to hold an independence referendum on Oct 19 next year if she wins a Supreme Court case that starts on Tuesday. To applause and cheers, the First Minister told the SNP conference in Aberdeen that a separation vote would be staged “if the court decides in the way we hope it does”, describing delegates as the “independence generation”. She said she would “respect that judgment” if the court ruled that she does not have the legal power to stage another vote, as most legal experts predict. Constitutional affairs are reserved to Westminster.” – Daily Telegraph
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