Autumn Statement 2023
Scotsman Bulletin
Scotsman Bulletin
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello, and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin.
00:09 My name's Dale Miller, I'm Head of News at the Scotsman.
00:12 I'm joined by our Westminster correspondent, Alexander Brown.
00:15 We're here to wrap up the autumn statement,
00:18 and particularly as far as we know so far,
00:20 the implications for Scotland,
00:22 and there are quite a number actually, Alex,
00:25 that statement from Hunt with a couple of jokes,
00:28 as he likes to throw in.
00:30 It went for a good, what, 45, 50 minutes,
00:33 but there was some stuff in there
00:35 that our readers will be really interested in.
00:37 - Yeah, so I think the main headline, policy-wise,
00:40 is a national insurance cut.
00:41 So 27 million people across Britain
00:45 are going to get a national insurance cut.
00:46 So for the average person, if you are on 35,000 pounds,
00:51 you save 450 pounds.
00:53 And then for the self-employed, there are two changes.
00:57 So national insurance is abolished
00:58 for class two and class four.
01:00 I think that saves a self-employed person
01:02 about 380 pounds a year, is the average.
01:06 So really big, significant cuts to people.
01:10 And then more broadly, just for business,
01:13 there's some tax breaks for firms
01:14 investing in new equipment.
01:15 So expensing, which you and I probably know
01:17 as a coffee with an MP or something,
01:20 if you're a huge company, you can now expense
01:25 and claim back money on the big items you've got,
01:28 which costs 11 billion pounds.
01:30 It will be saving companies
01:32 and taking money out of the treasury,
01:34 11 billion pounds a year,
01:37 but the government hopes that that's going to increase
01:40 investment OBR forecasts, I think, say 4 billion pounds
01:43 will come in a year from that,
01:45 or they will create investment
01:46 from other companies elsewhere.
01:47 So the whole argument the government is trying to make
01:49 is it's a loss to the immediate income,
01:53 but long-term it's going to encourage growth
01:55 and it's basically trickle down economics.
01:57 I mean, they're the real headlines.
02:00 I mean, it stopped me if you have any questions on this,
02:02 we can get into growth forecasts as well.
02:04 I think that's really interesting, specifically on tax.
02:07 Tax has gone down, it's dropped 0.7 of GDP,
02:10 which sounds good to lower the tax burden,
02:14 but they're still higher than they ever have been up,
02:18 other than just now.
02:20 And the OBR forecasts are absolutely damning.
02:22 I mean, I'm making so many notes.
02:24 It's delivered with all this positivity,
02:26 but growth this year was forecast to be 0.2, it's 0.6.
02:31 That's progress.
02:32 But next year was forecast to be 1.8, now 0.7.
02:36 The year after 2.5, now 1.4.
02:39 So all this talk about growth from the chancellor
02:42 and creating an awesome statement to get Britain growing,
02:46 actually the forecasts say Britain's economy
02:49 is not going to grow at the speed it needs to,
02:52 and the tax burden by 2029 is still going to be 33.7% of GDP.
02:57 So this is being spanned as a positive boost for business,
03:03 but in reality, these are some incredibly unsettling numbers
03:07 for the government or indeed the Labour Party,
03:09 who will be hoping to take over from this government.
03:12 - And Alex, we know the business community up here
03:15 in Scotland were pleading for more support.
03:18 Now, we didn't know whether some support would come
03:21 from the UK government or whether it would be up
03:23 to the Scottish government about whether they could look
03:26 at something in the December budget,
03:28 but there was a phrasing of alcohol duty
03:31 that has a bit, well, it does have an impact
03:33 for whiskey, for starters, up here.
03:37 - Yeah, so alcohol duty has been frozen,
03:40 which the Scotch Whiskey Association, among others,
03:42 have celebrated, or at least said that they're happy about.
03:46 The chancellor, as he was announcing this,
03:48 said he'd had impassioned speeches from, as of Jack,
03:53 on this issue and from Douglas Ross.
03:56 But it's worth noting that the whisky associations
03:58 are also, they're relieved, but also stressing
04:01 that they are still taxed far more than other alcohols.
04:04 I mean, reading their press for that comment,
04:06 the first bit is, well, this is good news, we're relieved.
04:08 And then you get to the second bit,
04:09 and it's still far too high compared to other alcohols.
04:12 We're still really struggling as an industry.
04:15 This is still not enough.
04:16 We need a row back.
04:17 This isn't new damage.
04:19 We're where we were, but things have to change.
04:21 So it's not a cause for celebration.
04:25 I think it's a cause for relief, and the battle goes on.
04:28 - Alex, inflation, we heard a lot of talk
04:32 about inflation's coming down.
04:35 We've got fiscal headroom to make cuts,
04:38 to offer people some relief.
04:41 In your view, you mentioned a bit about the wider economy,
04:44 but is this actually gonna make
04:46 the inflation situation worse?
04:48 Is it not gonna have a direct impact?
04:51 Is there any initial reaction in and around that?
04:54 - Well, I think what's really interesting
04:55 is the way the government are handling inflation
04:58 and claiming credit for it.
05:00 When inflation rose to, I think it was 10 point something
05:04 in the last three months of last year,
05:07 the government were quick to say,
05:09 this is external factors, this has nothing to do with us.
05:13 We'll try and lower it,
05:14 but really any raise isn't to do with us.
05:17 Now that it's halved, and the prime minister
05:19 has met his pledge to reduce it,
05:21 the government's saying, this is down to us,
05:23 it's down to our work with the Bank of England.
05:25 It's incredibly, you know,
05:26 when actually inflation is kind of down to external factors.
05:29 So, and it's still incredibly high, right?
05:32 The normal inflation is 2%,
05:34 and we're still rocking at about 4.7,
05:36 and it's incendiary and has been fluctuating.
05:39 So things are still more expensive.
05:41 It's good that it's gone down,
05:42 but for you and I and the general person on the street
05:45 and the people of Scotland that are readers
05:46 who are going to the shops just trying to purchase stuff,
05:48 it is still going to be so much more expensive
05:51 than it was a year ago,
05:52 and more expensive than it was two years ago.
05:55 And there's no sign of that coming down
05:56 because inflation would have to get to 2%
05:59 for us to get back to where we were.
06:00 And that's still higher than where it should be.
06:01 So it's created room for these tax cuts,
06:05 which the chancellor was under huge pressure
06:07 to deliver on Tory MPs.
06:08 But in the day to day of how much money
06:11 you'll have in your pocket, it's not that useful.
06:15 And I think one thing that's really worth stressing as well
06:17 is as the government justify tax cuts for bigger business,
06:20 in the previous budget, Jeremy Hunt announced tax cuts
06:24 to government department, cuts even,
06:26 to government departments,
06:27 but delayed them until after the next election, essentially.
06:31 So people will have a bit more money in their pockets,
06:34 but public services are still facing huge, huge cuts
06:40 in the year ahead.
06:41 So there's the fiscal will room
06:43 is only going to get smaller
06:45 and the government's gonna have to do more with less
06:48 going forward.
06:49 So it's a grim, grim day, really.
06:51 - Alex, just lastly, the Fleming Centre,
06:56 the name drop from Jeremy Hunt caught my attention,
06:59 obviously after Alexander Fleming.
07:02 So there's a good Scottish nod there.
07:04 Any other final takeaways that we haven't discussed
07:07 for you from the autumn start?
07:09 - Not really.
07:10 I mean, I think MPs aren't particularly enthralled by it.
07:14 The tax cuts are an easy sell
07:16 and Tory MPs will be very happy about benefits.
07:18 And the benefit sanctions are really interesting.
07:20 That's one area I say we haven't talked about
07:22 in that the benefit system's being changed.
07:24 So if you are disabled or you have mental health problems
07:29 and you go not applying to jobs
07:32 and you don't attend a compulsory job preparement scheme,
07:38 you can have your benefits cut by 4,000 pounds a year.
07:41 So charities say this is incredibly difficult and punishing
07:46 and will hurt the most marginalised,
07:48 as do Labour and the SNP.
07:50 But the government say, you know,
07:51 the best way to get people to help the economy
07:53 and get people into work
07:55 is to make it harder for people to be out of work.
07:56 So the impact of that,
07:59 I think we're gonna have to see some more assessment.
08:02 But really at this point,
08:03 we've just heard what the government has said,
08:05 but we need to see the documents.
08:06 It's only in the hours coming up
08:07 it's only in the hours coming ahead
08:09 that once we can get into the real nitty gritty
08:10 of the finances,
08:11 we'll have a clearer idea of what exactly this all means.
08:14 - Alex, thank you very much for talking us through that
08:18 in a nice compact fashion.
08:21 You can read all the latest
08:23 on what is coming out of the autumn statement
08:26 on our live blog.
08:28 Alex has been manning that.
08:29 That's on the site at scotsman.com now.
08:32 And there'll be plenty to read.
08:34 You can get into how the Scotch Whiskey Association
08:37 feels about the freezing of alcohol tax as well.
08:41 Please go to our homepage,
08:43 click on the politics tab
08:45 if you want the full breakdown throughout today
08:47 and over the next 24 hours.
08:48 And for a full wrap,
08:49 go out and buy a copy of the Scotsman tomorrow.
08:52 Thanks for joining us.
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