John Healey raised taxes on banks and landlords to fund a £100 winter handout for 20 million families as official forecasts made clear there is no end in sight for the cost of living crisis.
In his first budget, the chancellor blamed “global economic storms” for the grim outlook, as the war in Iran drives up oil and gas prices.
Labour Chancellor John Healey has hit struggling workers, savers and landlords as he drives the tax burden to a new record high to fund energy bailouts and a mushrooming welfare bill in his Budget today.
The European Parliament’s employment committee has highlighted the need for regulating automated control of workers after visiting Amazon warehouses in Germany and Poland this week.
Seven of the committee MEPs visited Amazon warehouses employing some 5,000 workers on Monday and Tuesday (26-27 October) ahead of the Commission’s Quality Jobs Act proposal expected in December.
The trip follows the committee’s hearing on working conditions in Amazon in January, where workers raised concerns about efficiency goals, safety, and surveillance using AI tools, which may be regulated more rigorously as a part of the upcoming act.
According to a 2023 survey by UNI Europa, a labour union federation, about a half of Amazon’s employees said their work had a negative impact on their mental and physical health.
Workers’ progress throughout the day is usually watched through security cameras, but also the work badges scanned in check points in various locations in the warehouse, and scanning devices used to identify products.
In the city of Sosnowiec, home to one of Amazon’s Polish warehouses, employees are overworked by “constant pressure of being judged, which is very hard to cope with mentally,” Agata Wypiór, recently-named vice secretary of Amazon’s European Works Council and Solidarność union leader told EUobserver.
Leaving worker management and performance monitoring to algorithms means “these processes become almost invisible,” Li Andersson, head of the delegation, told EUobserver.
“The way the workers describe it, it sounds like a digital panopticon: when you work faster you have to work even faster.“
Workers themselves often do not know what data is collected on them and how it is being used to set productivity targets, Anderssen highlighted.
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Prime minister warns cabinet not to express opinions about future relationship with Brussels before review of options
Andy Burnham has warned ministers not to express their opinions about how the government should approach Brexit, as he argued that the Conservatives’ deal with Brussels had been more extreme than that promised in the 2016 referendum.
In another series of announcements connected to his plan to seek closer links with the EU, Burnham told ministers at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the current deal was a bad one, before writing to frontbenchers setting out his hopes to address this.
Prime minister warns cabinet not to express opinions about future relationship with Brussels before review of options
Andy Burnham has warned ministers not to express their opinions about how the government should approach Brexit, as he argued that the Conservatives’ deal with Brussels had been more extreme than that promised in the 2016 referendum.
In another series of announcements connected to his plan to seek closer links with the EU, Burnham told ministers at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the current deal was a bad one, before writing to frontbenchers setting out his hopes to address this.
The economy may be going to hell in a handcart, but at least John Healey has cut 6p from the daily supermarket bill. That will make all the difference to beleaguered households, says Alexander McKibbin.
John Healey starts by saying that his budget is “delivered at a time when global uncertainties and pressures are swirling worldwide and hitting people here at home”.
Healey says he will meet the fiscal rule that day to day spending must be covered by tax receipts and the investment rule that government debt, defined as public sector net financial liabilities, must be falling as a percentage of GDP in the third year of the forecast.
The government will have £15bn of headroom in 2029-30 and £20bn in 2030-31, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s forecaster.
Government borrowing will be 4.2% of GDP this year, 3.4% next year, then 2.9% and 2.1% 1.8% by 2030-31, the OBR says.
Predictions of slowing growth were wrong, Healey says. The OBR says GDP will grow by 1.2% this year, 1% next year, 1.6% in 2028, 1.8% in 2029, 1.7% in 2030, 1.6% in 2031. In March the OBR had predicted GDP growth of 1.1% in 2026, rising to 1.6% in 2027 and 2028, and dropping to 1.5% in 2029 and 2030.
Government debt is forecast to be 83.2% of GDP this year, 83.8% next year, and then falling to 83.1%, 82.3% and 81.7% in the following years.
Martin Lewissaid that, when he met John Healey this morning, the chancellor said that, having removed standing charges from gas bills, he would also like to get rid of them from electricity bills. Lewis said:
The chancellor said he will be talking to Ofgem about how they get rid of the charge on electricity as well, but that is ‘trickier’ apparently and will take longer.
Exclusive: Health secretary to extend role of watchdog, which backers say helps hold service in England to account
Yvette Cooper has abandoned plans to abolish the NHS’s independent patient champion after an outcry from MPs across the political spectrum.
The health secretary has decided to keep and extend the role of Healthwatch England, which was due to be axed as part of the government’s reorganisation of the health service in England.
axe the Health Services Safety Investigations Body.
end councils’ automatic representation on the boards of ICBs.
remove the requirement for a nurse on every NHS foundation trust board.
In today’s newsletter: First Edition readers and people struggling with the cost of living tell us what the government could do to improve their lives
Good morning. Don’t expect anything radical. This, the Treasury has been at pains to tell us, will be a very “low-key” budget. After weeks of speculation from journalists, a flurry of press releases from thinktanks, and a photoshoot with an obligatory red box, the chancellor, John Healey, will announce the details of the Burnham government’s first budget in the Commons today at 12:30pm.
Healey has been selling this as a series of measures designed to relieve pressure on low- and middle-income households under the mangled tagline of “breathing space for today, fresh hope for the future”. Many of the proposals have already been briefed, and their modesty is a sign of the constraints – both real and self-imposed – that his government faces. He has rejected calls to raise capital gains tax or lower the mansion tax and has promised to stick to Labour’s fiscal rules, while the Iran war has increased the cost of borrowing and eroded his spending power.
Israeli elections | Israel could be in for weeks of political haggling after exit polls and partial official results showed neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the opposition bloc led by former general Gadi Eisenkot had won enough seats to form a government.
Energy | The government’s plan to fund a multibillion-pound nuclear plant at the Sizewell site in Suffolk represents a “terrible deal” for the UK taxpayer over the rest of the century, according to the government’s spending watchdog.
Middle East | A multipronged peace deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz within four days of sanctions being lifted and for the Houthis to withdraw substantial forces inside Yemen are at the heart of Gulf states’ plans to avert what they regard as a disastrous renewal of war between Iran and the US.
UK news | A 78-year-old volunteer has claimed a Reform UK councillor accused her of “facilitating the invasion” and being akin to a Nazi collaborator during the second world war because she has helped asylum seekers learn English.
Brazil | The far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro has reportedly fled Brazil and is on his way to the United States after losing Sunday’s presidential election to the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
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