In a much anticipated ‘emergency budget’ announcement, The Chancellor set out a series of targeted measures to boost aspects of the economy, struggling in a post Covid environment. Whilst it is expected that some sectors will not be able to recover for some months yet due to the continued need for social distancing, Rishi Sunak […]
At the summer statement on Wednesday 8 July 2020, the Chancellor announced a handful of measures that he felt would help create jobs and mitigate the formal end to the furlough scheme. Before announcing the measures, Mr Sunak made it clear that the Jobs Retention Scheme could not and should not go on forever, even […]
The rumblings of an emergency budget seem to be getting louder as we begin to emerge from lockdown. Undoubtedly, now is the time for Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to start considering the sizeable task of recovering the economy and paying back the WW2 scale borrowing that has underpinned the bailout of businesses and individuals. It is […]
I was recently asked whether we had witnessed any corporate ‘casualties’ as a result of the Covid pandemic, the answer to which was, I am pleased to report, no. However, I fully accept that being early June, we are far from clear of the woods and still remain in a somewhat cosseted environment, with the […]
Back in 2015, we published a blog entitled ‘Can Chichester catch a Chinese cold?’. The question at that point related to the early signs of a slowdown in the Chinese economy and the potential ripples that would send out to global markets and closer to home. When drafting the original post, the idea of a […]
With the inflation rate falling to 1.3% in December, down from 1.5% in November, will the new Governor at the Bank of England have to consider an interest rate cut as one of his first acts? The drop to 1.3% puts inflation 0.7% below the Bank’s target rate (2%) and is the lowest level it […]
You would be forgiven for having missed the fact that the Chancellor delivered his Spring Statement on Wednesday 13th March. Hidden deep beneath the Brexit debate and seemingly endless votes, the Chancellor stood up and delivered his regular update on the economy. Historically the budget was delivered in March and the statement was saved for […]
As he delivered the Budget 2018, Philip Hammond joked that he had avoided giving his speech on Halloween night itself because it would have been simply too tempting for the caption writers, and had avoided Christmas because he did not want to appear in cartoons disguised as Santa Claus. Even so, he was determined to […]
The rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose to 2.7% in August following a CPI figure of 2.5% in July. The year on year comparison figure has been on the rise since 2016, peaking at over 3% in 2017 before falling back at the start of this year and then […]
So, we have now enjoyed our first autumn budget. The move to an autumn budget is a welcome one across industry as it gives businesses and individuals time to adjust and digest before changes take effect. Being cynical it also leaves plenty of time for U-turns… We say we enjoyed the autumn budget because, as […]
In case you missed it, interest rates doubled earlier this month to their second lowest ever level… what a sentence. Expected for some time, this is the first of several ‘baby steps’ Governor Carney has been preparing us for, as The Bank of England seeks to balance spending, inflation and GDP growth. Commentators do not […]
Last month we wrote about the lost decade – the ten years since the financial crash of 2008 – and having discussed this theory in meetings with a range of SMEs it feels like the side effect of the lost decade is a numbness to economic uncertainty. That is not to say that businesses are […]