New PM appoints ministers and mulls delayed Autumn Statement

Sunak and Hunt have moved the Medium-Term Fiscal Plan statement, previously scheduled for Monday 31 October, to Thursday 17 November, and announced that it will be a full Autumn Statement.

New Treasury ministers

The new team of Treasury ministers is -

Jeremy Hunt MP - Chancellor of the Exchequer

John Glen MP - Chief Secretary to the Treasury

Victoria Atkins MP - Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Tax Minister)

Andrew Griffith MP - Economic Secretary to the Treasury (City Minister)

Felicity Buchan MP - Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (NB. Still listed on HMT website as of 3pm, 28 October, but not yet confirmed as being reappointed)

The new tax minister, Victoria Atkins, has been MP for Louth and Horncastle in Lincolnshire since 2015. Prior to her political career, she was a barrister specialising in the field of fraud. She was a junior Home Office minister responsible for safeguarding from November 2017 to September 2021, additionally serving as minister for women from January 2018 to February 2020. She then served at the Ministry of Justice as Minister of State for Prisons and Probation and Minister for Afghan Resettlement from September 2021 until she resigned in July 2022.

Confusingly, the role of tax minister swaps back to being the Financial Secretary, after seven weeks when it was the responsibility of the Economic Secretary. Andrew Griffith remains City Minister, responsible for banking and other financial services, but switches from being Financial Secretary to being Economic Secretary.

Richard Fuller, whose seven week stint as tax minister must rank as one of the briefest ever (though he was Economic Secretary with different responsibilities before that), appears to have returned to the backbenches.

While the Financial Secretary has lead responsibility for HMRC and the tax system, the Exchequer Secretary has some tax responsibilities including:

• Childcare policy, including tax free childcare
• Environment taxes, including plastics taxation (excluding carbon taxes, such as UK Emissions Trading Scheme; Climate Change Levy; Carbon Price Support)
• Transport taxation including vehicle taxes and future strategy and air passenger duty
• North Sea oil, gas and shipping
• Excise duties (alcohol, tobacco and gambling), including excise fraud and law enforcement
• Soft drink industry levy
• Charities, the voluntary sector and gift aid
• Supporting tax legislation in Parliament
• Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies

Other new ministers

Other new ministers of interest include Treasury Committee chair Mel Stride being appointed as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. As a consequence he has resigned as a committee chair.

Former tax minister Jesse Norman has been moved from his previous foreign office post to a new role as a Minister of State for Transport (responsibilities yet to be confirmed).

Meanwhile another former tax minister, Lucy Frazer, leaves the Department for Transport to take up a new role as a Minister of State in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Two of the leading Conservatives in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption & Responsible Tax (chaired by Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge) have been appointed to ministerial roles, meaning they will be expected to step back from their APPG roles.

APPG co-chair Andrew Mitchell has been appointed Minister for Development in the Foreign Office. He will attend Cabinet in this role.

APPG vice-chair Kevin Hollinrake has been made a junior minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (responsibilities yet to be confirmed).

Grant Shapps MP has been appointed as the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Autumn Statement and speculation

The Government announced on Wednesday that the fiscal statement originally planned for Monday 31 October has been postponed to Thursday 17 November and will be a full Autumn Statement.

The Chancellor said the statement was postponed to ensure it is based on the “most accurate possible” economic forecasts and he has discussed the plans with the Governor of the Bank of England ahead of the bank’s policy decision on inflation on Thursday 3 November.

Speculation is rife as to what measures will appear in the Autumn Statement. According to today’s Financial Times, Sunak and Hunt are exploring tax increases and public spending cuts worth up to £50 billion a year. The two men reportedly spent yesterday discussing the ‘pretty grim’ fiscal outlook and going through Autumn Statement measures in detail.

According to the FT the £50 billion figure comes from Treasury calculations showing an initial fiscal hole of £30-40 billion, which will require tax rises or spending cuts of about £45 billion because attempts to fill it will worsen the economic outlook, plus a further £5 billion of additional fiscal headroom to allow for the possibility that the economy performs worse than expected.

According to The Times the windfall tax on oil and gas companies is likely to be extended. The paper says the Chancellor is considering three options: raising the windfall tax rate, imposing it for longer and extending it to electricity companies. The existing levy is predicted to raise £7 billion this year and £10 billion next year.

Yesterday’s Times said the Government is looking at extending the freeze on income tax thresholds for a further two years. The paper notes that as Chancellor Sunak froze the personal allowances at £12,750 and thresholds for the higher rate of tax at £50,270 for four years, as well as the additional rate threshold at £150,000. This was originally predicted to raise £8 billion a year but is now expected to raise in the region of £30 billion due to higher inflation.

The decision to postpone the Autumn Statement has thrown Scotland’s budget plans into doubt. In response to a government-initiated question tabled in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday, interim Finance Secretary John Swinney had told MSPs that the Scottish Government’s response to September’s fiscal statement would be delayed due to the “unprecedented uncertainty and instability” caused by UK government policy changes. After the announcement on Wednesday Swinney said that the “unwelcome and unnecessary” delay could result in the Scottish Budget, currently set for 15 December, being put back to the New Year.

Treasury Committee

The appointment of Mel Stride to the cabinet has created a vacancy for chair of the Treasury Committee. Under a cross-party agreement this post is reserved for Conservative MPs but already five MPs are reported to have put themselves forward for the role -

• Harriett Baldwin – former City minister and a current member of the committee
• John Baron – veteran backbencher, representing Basildon since 2001
• Matt Hancock – former Health Secretary and Treasury adviser (under George Osborne)
• Andrea Leadsom - former Treasury minister and leader of the House of Commons
• Kit Malthouse - former Education Secretary and Treasury Committee member

The Speaker has announced the timetable for the election of the new chair. Nominations are now open and will close at noon on Tuesday 8 November. If more than one nomination is received, a ballot will take place on Wednesday 9 November. The Speaker would announce the results in the Chamber later that day.

While only Conservative MPs may stand for election all MPs are able to take part in the election process, putting a premium on MPs with good cross-party links. As a longstanding existing member of the committee Harriet Baldwin is thought by some to be favourite.

As well as Mel Stride, current Treasury Committee members Kevin Hollinrake and Julia Marson have been appointed to ministerial positions, leaving three vacancies on the committee for Conservative MPs (one of which will be filled by the new chair).