{"id":9645,"date":"2022-11-23T16:15:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T16:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/11\/23\/news-in-review-82\/"},"modified":"2022-11-23T16:18:39","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T16:18:39","slug":"news-in-review-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2022\/11\/23\/news-in-review-82\/","title":{"rendered":"News in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

 \u201cA balanced plan for stability\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Last Thursday, Chancellor of the Exchequer\nJeremy Hunt set out his plan to \u201ctackle the cost-of-living crisis and\nrebuild our economy\u201d <\/em>in his first Autumn Statement. Striking a defiant\ntone, the Chancellor said that he was \u201ctaking difficult decisions\u201d<\/em>,\nwhile emphasising that the government\u2019s priorities are \u201cstability, growth\nand public services.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Mr Hunt made several key announcements on personal\ntaxation, pensions and public services, as he laid out spending cuts and tax\nrises totalling around \u00a355bn. In response to \u201cunprecedented global\nheadwinds\u201d<\/em>, however, the Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) per unit will be\nmaintained through the winter. This will, in effect, limit average energy bills\nto \u00a32,500 per year; from April 2023 the EPG will rise to \u00a33,000 per year, before\nending in March 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

The government will also increase the National\nLiving Wage for individuals aged 23 and over to \u00a310.42 an hour, a 9.7% rise effective\nfrom April 2023. Likewise, the Chancellor committed to retaining the Triple\nLock on pensions, which will mean the State Pension rises in line with September\u2019s\nConsumer Prices Index (CPI) rate of 10.1% \u2013 from April 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

On taxation, the Income Tax additional rate\nthreshold at which 45p becomes payable will be lowered from \u00a3150,000 to\n\u00a3125,140 from 6 April 2023. The annual Capital Gains Tax exemption will be\nreduced from \u00a312,300 to \u00a36,000 from April 2023 and then to \u00a33,000 from April\n2024. The Dividend Allowance will also fall from\n\u00a32,000 to \u00a31,000 from April 2023, and then to \u00a3500 from April 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

The change to the Stamp Duty Land Tax threshold\nfor England and Northern Ireland, announced in the former Chancellor\u2019s\n\u2018mini-budget\u2019 in September, will now remain in place until March 2025. This\nmeans that the nil-rate threshold will stay at \u00a3250,000 for all purchasers and\n\u00a3425,000 for first-time buyers, compared to \u00a3125,000 and \u00a3300,000 previously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Targeted cost-of-living support measures will\nalso continue, with an additional Cost of Living Payment of \u00a3900 available to\nhouseholds on means-tested benefits, \u00a3300 to pensioner households and \u00a3150 to\nindividuals on disability benefits in 2023-24.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

In his closing lines, Mr Hunt summed up the\nannouncements as \u201ca balanced plan for stability, a plan for growth and a\nplan for public services.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

COP27 ends in Egypt<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

The annual UN climate\nconference ended in Sharm el-Sheikh early on Sunday morning, after delegates\nfinally found common ground on an historic \u2018loss and damage\u2019 plan.\nFor the first time in 30 years of climate talks, developed countries agreed to\nprovide finance to poorer countries stricken by climate-induced disasters \u2013\nthough the details are yet to be clarified.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Despite this\nachievement, developed nations left COP27 disappointed with the progress made on\ncutting fossil fuels.\nThe final overarching deal did not include commitments to reduce fossil fuel\nuse and also added ambiguous new language about \u2018low emissions energy\u2019<\/em>,\nwhich, experts say, could later be used to include fossil fuels within a green\nenergy future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Reflecting\non two weeks of talks, UK lead negotiator Alok Sharma commented, \u201cI\u2019m\nincredibly disappointed that we weren’t able to go further.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Inflation hits new\nheights<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Last\nWednesday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released inflation figures\nfor October, which revealed that the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose annually by\n11.1%, up from 10.1% in the previous month. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Gas (up 130%) and\nelectricity prices (up 66%) remained the main drivers of annual inflation, even\nthough the government’s EPG scheme went some way to mitigating those rises. Food prices, especially\nbasic items such as milk and eggs, increased at 16.2%, the fastest rate for 45\nyears. As a result, it is poorer households \u2013 which spend a higher proportion\nof their income on food and energy \u2013 who are being hit hardest, according to\nONS.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Amidst the rising costs,\nretail sales rose by 0.6% in October, though this was skewed by the drop in\nsales in September when shops closed for the Queen’s funeral. Despite October’s\nrebound, ONS said sales remain below pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Markets<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

London stocks remained well above the waterline at close on Tuesday,\nwith energy shares in the green as oil prices recovered. The FTSE\n100 ended the session up 1.03% at 7,452.84, and the FTSE 250 was\nahead 0.05% at 19,422.37.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Here to help<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

Financial advice is key, so\nplease do not hesitate to get in contact with any questions or concerns you may\nhave.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

The value of investments can go down as well\nas up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. The past is not a\nguide to future performance and past performance may not necessarily be\nrepeated.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n

All\ndetails are correct at time of writing (23 November 2022)<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 \u201cA balanced plan for stability\u201d Last Thursday, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt set out his plan to \u201ctackle the cost-of-living crisis and rebuild our economy\u201d in his first Autumn Statement. Striking a defiant tone, the Chancellor said that he was \u201ctaking difficult decisions\u201d, while emphasising that the government\u2019s priorities are \u201cstability, growth and public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":9647,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,112],"tags":[],"hd_content_source":[116],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9646,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9645\/revisions\/9646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9645"},{"taxonomy":"hd_content_source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hd_content_source?post=9645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}