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Businesses will bear the brunt of chancellor Rachel Reeves’ much anticipated (and leaked) first budget as she introduced a £40billion tax hike. £25billion of that will come from a jump in employer’s national insurance contributions. Reeves announced it will go up by 1.2 percentage points, to 15%, from April next

Markets got the jitters after an initial calm response to the chancellor’s announcements while she was speaking in the Commons. Analysts had drawn comparisons with the disastrous Liz Truss mini-budget two years ago which spooked the markets with unfunded tax cuts. Predictions of a calm response were followed by a

The UK’s public finance and spending watchdog concluded that Rachel Revees had delivered “large increases in spending, tax, and borrowing” with the country reaching a record tax take. In its response to the budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility confirmed: • The Budget increases spending by £70 billion annually, with two-thirds on

Everything you ever wanted to know about Labour’s first budget in almost 15 years is contained in the Red Book, published by the Treasury. You can read it here.

Plans for a brand-new multi-million-pound Home Office base in Stoke-on-Trent have been scrapped.  As reported by Daily Focus and hailed as a ‘great investment for the city’, the government department had been in talks with Stoke-on-Trent City Council about building a brand-new base in the city which would house all of

Fifteen local companies have created 37 apprenticeships thanks to funding from Stoke-on-Trent City Council.   The city council paid out £63,000 from its apprenticeship levy in 2023/24 to employers with staff who live in the city, as well as supporting 106 people to study for apprenticeship qualification while working for the