Rishi sunak

Pupils lost around a third of their face-to-face teaching during the Covid lockdowns. Downing Street has promised an extra £3 billion of catch-up funding, on top of around £100 billion spent on education in a normal year. Fixing a lack of teaching should involve doing a bit more of it — but when asked if he would extend the school day, Rishi Sunak said longer hours wouldn’t provide ‘value for money’. It’s one of few areas where, in tomorrow’s Budget, the spending taps will be turned off. But why, as the Children’s Commissioner recently noted, are British state schools routinely closing their gates at 2.30 p.m.? The length of the school day is now shorter than it was 50 years ago.

Is Rishi Sunak losing his battle within the Cabinet to promote fiscal responsibility? We’ll find out this week, when he unveils his Budget and three-year Spending Review on Wednesday, but there were hints this morning that more spending is coming down the track. Speaking to Andrew Marr on BBC One, Sunak laid out the principles that guided his Budget process this time round: ‘Strong investment in public services, driving economic growth by investing in infrastructure, innovation and skills, giving businesses confidence and then supporting working families. Those are the ingredients of what makes a stronger Budget and that’s what we will deliver next week.

At some point, Rishi Sunak is going to need to pick a lane. There is only so long that the Chancellor can claim to believe that excessive borrowing is immoral while borrowing to such excess. His trick yesterday was to make all the right noises about restraint while unrolling a £500 million ‘plan for jobs’. Take away his earnest delivery and it’s still not clear whether he’s the boozer at the bar telling the world about the dangers of alcoholism, or the sensible friend ordering the taxi home. Let’s be fair. Sunak has had to deal with exceptional circumstances in the last 18 months, and is taking steps to cease the unprecedented spending spurge.

Rishi Sunak didn’t give too much away tonight when he spoke in the 'ThinkTent' at Conservative Party Conference. The Chancellor is known for being cautious with his words, and has been increasingly tight-lipped in the weeks leading up to his October Budget. But his presence at the fringe event was telling in itself. Sunak was only billed for one public fringe event this year, co-hosted by the Institute of Economic Affairs and Taxpayers’ Alliance. Their ‘ThinkTent’ boasts some of the most free-market, libertarian events you’ll find at conference: both organisations are strong advocates for a low-tax, smaller state. So, not necessarily an obvious place to find the Chancellor who has overseen record peacetime spending over the past 18 months.

Boris Johnson's announcement today, promising he will fix the £15 billion hole in health and social care, may well be the decision that determines his and his party's fate at the next election — and, by implication, Keir Starmer's reaction will also determine his destiny.  Probably the most important point is that after the 18 months we've had, most people would argue that putting the NHS and care for the elderly and vulnerable on a stable financial footing should be the Prime Minister's number one priority.

We are in the middle of a once-in-a-generation shift: working from home. There are skill shortages across the economy, supply bottlenecks, and empty supermarket shelves. A couple of million people are still set to come off furlough, back into jobs that may no longer exist. The labour market is in utter chaos. But, hey, here’s a good idea. Let's whack a tax on jobs. Really? The government’s widely leaked plan to increase National Insurance, a tax on jobs, could not come at a worse possible time.  The government’s widely leaked plan to increase National Insurance, a tax on jobs, could not come at a worse possible time We can all debate whether the government should raise taxes to fund social care.

Car workers in Sunderland are doing just fine. Construction workers still have jobs. And the food is still getting to the supermarkets, even if there are some occasional disruptions to supply.  Not many of the dire warnings about the consequences of leaving the European Union have actually come to pass. There is, however, one group that looks likely to be hit, even if no one quite predicted it. The pensioners. It looks certain to cost them the ‘triple lock’ on their pensions: although since many of them voted for Brexit, they can hardly complain. The government is tying itself up in knots on how to wriggle out of the ‘triple lock’ The government is tying itself up in knots on how to wriggle out of the ‘triple lock’.

For a government to break a manifesto commitment is a serious matter which, quite rightly, is sure to rebound at the ballot box. But there is one commitment in the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto which has simply got to go: the promise to maintain the ‘triple lock’ on pensions which sees the basic state pension increased each year by either inflation, average earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is the highest.  At the time the party made this promise it could not have foreseen the peculiar circumstances which would result in today’s remarkable ONS figures showing that average earnings are up over the past 12 months by 8.8 per cent.

It will be better for our careers. We will network more effectively, spark ideas off one another, and learn new things from our colleagues, as well as getting a reminder from time to time of how annoying they are.  Chancellor Rishi Sunak took a break today from his usual occupation of dishing out vast sums of free money to remind us all of how much he learned from working in an office. Sunak is urging us all to get back to the skyscraper, shop, warehouse, or whatever, as quickly as possible. But hold on. Sure, there is nothing wrong with a few warm words to that effect – but we need more than that to get us back to the office.

Well, that didn’t take long. Two days ago, a leaked report revealed that the government was considering using a national insurance tax hike to pay for the NHS backlog and social care. Now it looks as though the money could be diverted elsewhere.  The anticipated increase of at least one per cent on national insurance would transfer an additional £6bn from taxpayers to the Treasury. But today, the Times reports that £1.5bn of that sum may not go to hip replacements or speeding up the timeline for cancer patients to access treatment. Instead it could help fund the three per cent NHS pay raise, which has been promised by health secretary Sajid Javid.