Carl Emmerson

As lockdowns are lifted and more economic activity is resumed, the extent, speed and nature of the UK’s economic recovery from the pandemic will be a crucial determinant of the Chancellor’s options at the upcoming Spending Review, expected this autumn.

This morning the ONS published its first estimates of the public finances over the whole of the financial year 2020-21. Borrowing is estimated to have reached £303 billion, or 14.5% of national income. This is £52 billion less than the £355 billion forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility at the Budget in early March. However, it is a staggering £248 billion, or 12.1% of national income, higher than forecast just before the financial year began – and more to the point, just prior to the economic impact of Covid-19 started to be felt in the UK – in March 2020.

Scottish Labour set out a vision for big expansion of the welfare state - with no sense of how much this would eventually cost or how it would be paid for

The Scottish Conservatives offer extra spending on the NHS and a range of targeted measures – but an ambition to cut income tax looks unlikely to be realised without cuts to at least some services.

The SNP’s manifesto offers big gains to a number of targeted groups in Scotland - but would involve difficult trade-offs in a tight budgetary environment.

IFS researchers presented their initial analysis of the Chancellor's announcements on the public finances, spending on public services, and the tax and the benefit system on Thursday 4 March at an online briefing.

The temporary £20 per week increase in Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit enacted at the start of the pandemic is due to expire at the end of March. Some campaigners have called for it to be extended for another year or made permanent, while the government are said to be considering instead a £500 one off bonus to benefit recipients.

The last decade has seen considerable change to the pensions environment. This event included a keynote talk from the Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion, a presentation on a programme of IFS research in this area over the last two years, and an expert panel discussion of the implications of the research.

IFS researchers presented their initial analysis of the Chancellor's announcements at an online briefing the day after the 2020 Spending Review.

At this event, senior researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research joined together to look at how Covid-19 has impacted the public finances.

Figures out today from the ONS show that headline inflation over the year to September was just 0.5%. With earlier figures showing a fall in earnings of 1% this means that under the “triple lock” next April would see the basic state pension and new state pension both increase by 2½%. This would bring the increase in the basic state pension over the last eleven years up to 41%, compared to 25% if it had been indexed in line with inflation or by 22% if it had been indexed in line with earnings.