No Budget Surprises from Rishi Sunak

Chancellor Rishi Sunak just delivered his first budget speech. Bearing in mind how short a time he has had in the job, it’s perhaps not odd that there are no great surprises or revolutions in it.

There are a number of short term measures to counter the economic impact of the coronavirus epidemic on top of the recently announced cut in bank base rate from 0.75% to 0.25% which is surely more of a political gesture than anything because such changes take time to have any impact on the real economy.

There will be a long-term review of business rates but there will be short-term relief for retail and leisure businesses to counter the epidemic impact. The Chancellor is also committing £175 billion to improve economic growth.

The National Insurance threshold will be raised to help the low paid and the planned increase in spirit duty has been cancelled. Fuel duty will remain frozen, when many people expected it to be raised. However red diesel tax relief will be abolished for most sectors other than farmers (it’s news to me that anyone else could use it legally).

Entrepreneurs tax relief will be reformed as widely forecast as it costs the exchequer £2 billion. The lifetime limit will be reduced from £10 million to £1 million. Will that deter entrepreneurs from setting up new businesses? I doubt it.

Twenty-two thousand civil servants will be moved out of London with new Treasury offices in the regions. That will come as a shock to many. Will the Chancellor come under attack from his civil servants like Priti Patel one wonders? But it is surely a positive move to offset the excessive London-centric nature of the economy and the pressure on housing in the South-East.

Some £27 billion will be invested in the strategic road network, including on the A303 that passes Stonehenge.

VAT on digital publications will be abolished so you’ll be able to buy my book “Business Perspective Investing” even cheaper from Amazon – but it’s damn cheap already so I think this may have limited impact except to some educational publishers. It is sensible reform though to align it with paper books.

There is more funding for housing which may help housebuilders and their suppliers and a more general reform of the planning system is forecast. There will be a stamp duty surcharge though for non-UK residents which might affect expensive homes in London but that was widely tipped as something the Chancellor was expected to implement.

For those only aspiring to afford such homes, HMRC is being given more funding to tackle tax avoidance. But the pension tax relief taper relief limit will be raised to £200,000 which may assist many high earners such as NHS consultants. More money is also being given to the NHS although it is not clear whether that and the promise of 40 new hospitals were new commitments or the old ones rehashed.

A closer study of the red book which covers the budget details is required to see if there are any surprises in the small print (see https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/budget-2020 ).

Postscript: One announcement snuck in behind the budget is a consultation on changes to the calculation of RPI by the UK Statistics Authority – see https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/consultation-on-the-reform-to-retail-prices-index-rpi-methodology-2/ .

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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