Latest news with #JeremyHunt
Daily Mirror
12 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Bank tax could cover cost of welfare U-turn AND scrapping two-child benefit cap
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been urged to consider a new windfall tax on our biggest banks as Britain's Big Four lenders are on track to rake in record profits of £48billion A windfall tax on Britain's biggest banks could raise more than £11billion of much-needed money for the Treasury, analysis has revealed. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is under pressure to raise taxes again in the autumn Budget to tackle a hole in the creaking public finances. With limited options, one suggestion is to increase levies on banks given they have benefited from high interest rates. HSBC became the last of the so-called Big Four to reveal eye-watering half-year profits. It raked in nearly £12billion - or £431 a second - of profits worldwide despite falling by a quarter year-on-year. The haul follows increased profits at Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest and Barclays. The quartet have collectively made £24billion in the space of just six months, and are on track to hit a record £48billion this year. Former Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt cut a bank surcharge in his 2022 autumn Statement, from 8% to 3%. But think tank Positive Money is calling for a new surcharge of 38%, in line with Energy Profits Levy on oil and gas companies. It claims doing so would be expected to bring in £11.3billion from the Big Four banks this year, based on their results for the first half of 2025. The move could cover the cost of the welfare U-turn and scrapping two-child benefit cap, the think tank claims. It argued that lenders' profits have been further boosted by the Bank of England paying higher interest rates on funds held at the central bank. Positive Money is proposing the UK follows Spain with a levy targeting profits from banks' domestic retail banking arm above a threshold of £800million. Simon Youel, Head of Policy and Advocacy at Positive Money, said: 'The public is paying the price of banks' record profits. Recouping the bill for banks' expensive free lunch should be a no-brainer, and can even be done in ways that protect the sector's international competitiveness. While banks should be profitable, there is no compelling reason to allow banks to extract such enormous rents from the rest of the economy. The money and payment services banks provide are an essential public utility, like energy. Just as energy companies shouldn't be able to profiteer, neither should banks - taxing windfalls makes sense for both.' Bank bosses and other industry leaders have warned the Chancellor against hitting the sector, warning it could dent their ability to lend and dent the government's stated number one mission to grow the economy. Georges Elhedery, HSBC chief executive, warned it risked its ability to 'support our customers and ultimately in delivering growth for the UK.' Lloyds' chief executive Charlie Nunn highlighted the Chancellor's recent Mansion House speech where she told of 'the need for a stronger economy and needing a strong financial services sector'. Mr Nunn said: 'We therefore believe that's the important thing to focus on and obviously, therefore, wouldn't be consistent with tax rises.' The Tories introduced a surcharge - or extra amount - of corporation tax banks paid from 2015. It was originally 8%, on top of the corporation tax at the time. But when the corporation tax rate rose, the surcharge fell to 5%. At the same time, the profit threshold on which banks had to start paying the surcharge jumped from £25million to £100million. The Office for Budget Responsibility says the surcharge raised £1.5billion for the Treasury in 2023/24, and forecast it would bring in another £7billion over the rest of this parliament. Positive Money is not calling for the 3% surcharge to be increased, but rather for a new levy of 38% on the profits of the banks' retail arms. t would be applied to their net interest income - the difference between what banks make from borrowers and pay depositors - above £800million. Trade body UK Finance says the UK banking sector paid total tax of £44.8 billion for the financial year to the end of March last year, up from £41billion the previous year, and the highest since the study started a decade ago. The figure also represented 4.7% of total UK government tax receipts last year. Comparing the UK with abroad, it says London's total tax rate of 45.8% is way above New York's 27.9% and the 38.6% in Frankfurt.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Zohran Mamdani's solutions are 'not achievable' in NYC and the rest of the country, former Biden official says
Former Army intelligence captain Jeremy Hunt and former Biden official Meghan Hays dissect Democrats' 'copycat candidates' inspired by democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani on 'The Faulkner Focus.'
Daily Record
6 days ago
- Business
- Daily Record
Extra £3.45 million awarded to study into possible upgrades to key Dumfries and Galloway road
The UK Government has allocated the cash to a project looking into bypassing the A75 around Springholm and Crocketford. An extra £3.45 million is to be put into investigating upgrades to the A75. The UK Government has allocated the cash to a study looking into bypassing Springholm and Crocketford. The new funding is part of a £66 million package Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced to improve transport links in the west of Scotland. She said: 'We're pledging billions to back Scottish jobs, industry and renewal - that's why we're investing in the major transport projects, including exploring upgrades to the A75, that local communities have been calling for. 'Whilst previous governments oversaw over a decade of decline of our transport infrastructure, we're investing in Britain's renewal. This £66 million investment is exactly what our Plan for Change is about, investing in what matters to you in the places that you live.' The need to upgrade the A75 was identified in the Scottish Government's second Strategic Transport Projects Review and the UK Government's Union Connectivity Review. Despite roads devolved to the Scottish Government, in 2022, the then Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced £5 million for a feasibility study into bypassing Springholm and Crocketford. That was increased to £8 million by Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in 2023 – but after Labour won last year's General Election, the amount allocated was reduced to 'up to £5 million'. The aaward of an extra £3.45 million now takes the total for the study to a potential £8.45 million. Scotland Secretary, Ian Murray, said: 'This £66 million investment in Scotland's roads demonstrates the UK Government's commitment to improving infrastructure and driving economic growth in all parts of the UK as part of our Plan for Change. This investment will make a real difference to people's daily lives and to the local economies of the south of Scotland, Ayrshire and Renfrewshire. 'The A75 is strategically important just not within but beyond Scotland. Its upgrading is long overdue. I am pleased that the UK Government has stepped up to fund the delivery of the A75 feasibility study in full. 'This investment is yet another example of how the UK Government is building the foundations for a stronger, more prosperous future that benefits communities right across Scotland.' While the UK Government is funding the study, work to upgrade the road will come from Holyrood. The Scottish Government appointed technical advisors to work on plans for upgrades last year.
Times
22-07-2025
- Automotive
- Times
Hunt looks a big figure now he's out of office
A surprise hit at the Buxton International Festival this year has been Jeremy Hunt. I was among a huge audience for an interview not only about the former chancellor's new book (Can We Be Great Again? — dubbed by one wag Can We Be a Bit Better Again?) but also about his life in politics. Modest, experienced, obviously capable, gently funny and courteous even about Liz Truss, whose economic mess he rescued us from, we may forget that though still quite young, Hunt has been culture secretary and health secretary, as well as foreign secretary and chancellor. When (he told us) he was on holiday abroad as a backbencher, and Downing Street telephoned to say the embattled Truss wanted to speak urgently to him, he assumed it was a hoax call and hung up. Literally everyone I've spoken to at Buxton who heard him was singing his praises. It made me think. Hunt, Hague, Balls, Osborne, Cameron, Milburn, Sunak, Blair, Major … these seem like big figures now that (as it were) they've gone. Were they really big — or did politics just get small? Being 75 and no Jeremy Clarkson I was bemused to be invited to drive a Polestar 2 for a fortnight — especially when they said I didn't need to write about it. But what the heck. So, for the record, it was fun. With a range of more than 300 miles I've been driving it all over the place; we already have an EV Fiat 500 which we love; and this latest experience convinces me that EVs are here to stay: solid, quiet, easy to drive, giddying acceleration … having now tried both a small electric runabout and a serene electric family saloon, there's no way now I'll ever go back to petrol engines. But (and it's a big but) please, please, Polestar, Tesla, all of you EV designers, stop asking us to use a tablet screen for our controls. If we want to play computer games we can do that in a lay-by, not at 70mph in the fast lane. It took both of us about 20 minutes to work out the in-car climate controls. Away with screens! Buttons, levers, knobs, things you push, pull, slide or twist while keeping your eyes on the road are so much more intuitive. Using smartphones when driving was criminalised for a reason. My favourite musical experience so far at Buxton has been the 'Shorts' evening: first performances of four 20-minute operas from young composers. And of these my favourite was the last, from Thanda Gumede: Tears Are Not Meant to Stay Inside, sung mostly in Zulu. I could even understand bits of the libretto without the surtitles. This was brilliant: African-influenced classical music, beautifully sung. A young black woman, isolated and lonely in the city, seeks help from what we once called a witchdoctor but now more accurately call a traditional healer who, helped by a bag of bones and relics, connects her with the world of spirits and ancestors. Connecting out, she also connects within, and is liberated. Moved as I was, I disagreed with the moral of the story. I believe that in tribal African cultures the chain of authority, the links between authority and the supernatural, the hierarchy mediating any individual's relations with the supernatural, and the fear, the cursing as well as the blessing that glues the system together, crushes the individual and incubates a collective cringe that goes with the grain of the Big Man politics poisoning Africa. But that's just my opinion; Gumede's opera, and the wonderful voices of Roberta Philip, Danielle Mahailet and Themba Mvula made me think — and, perhaps more important — made us feel. At Buxton I enjoyed too a work by a young Leonard Bernstein, Trouble in Tahiti, set around 1950. I all but detected an early draft of There's a Place for Us from West Side Story. But a thought on the visual scene. Formica table; two-piece grey suit and tie, short-back-and-sides for the husband; colourful frock for the wife. You could time-travel that scene to 2025 and the dislocation would be noticeable only at the margins. Over what other leap in our history (1875 to 1950? 1815 to 1890?) could you, with so little adjustment, update a scene by three quarters of a century?
Daily Mail
19-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
In the wake of infected blood and Lucy Letby scandals... I'll bar negligent NHS managers from senior jobs, Wes Streeting pledges
NHS managers who are found responsible for professional misconduct will be barred from taking up other senior roles in the Health Service, under plans to be unveiled by ministers. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has been moved to act by a string of NHS scandals, including the cover-up over infected blood and the deaths of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital, which employed nurse Lucy Letby. Under the plans, board-level directors who have committed serious misconduct will no longer be able to work in senior NHS management positions. To limit the scope for cover-ups, whistleblowers will also be encouraged to come forward. Any leader who silences whistleblowers or behaves unacceptably will be banned from returning to a Health Service position. There is currently no regulatory framework for managers equivalent to that for doctors and nurses. More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s. More than 3,000 people have died as a result – but a damning report published last year concluded that doctors, the Government and NHS tried to cover up what happened by 'hiding the truth'. Letby was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven more, but a growing number of public figures, led by former health secretary Jeremy Hunt and ex-Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption, have expressed concern about the absence of direct evidence or plausible motive linking her to the deaths – at a hospital known to have struggled to keep very premature babies alive. Three former senior managers at the hospital were arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter earlier this year. Mr Streeting said: 'I'm determined to create a culture of honesty and openness where whistleblowers are protected, and that demands tough enforcement. 'If you silence whistleblowers, you will never work in the NHS again. We've got to create the conditions where staff are free to come forward and sound the alarm when things go wrong. 'Protecting the reputation of the NHS should never be put before protecting patient safety. 'Most NHS leaders are doing a fantastic job, but we need to stop the revolving door that allows managers sacked for misconduct or incompetence to be quietly moved to another well-paid role in another part of the NHS.'
