Features - Page 18

Unveiling Scotland’s budget for the 2023-24 tax year, Scotland’s deputy first minister John Swinney has announced that the two highest rates of income tax will be raised by one penny in the pound.

A by-election is underway in the Greater Manchester constituency of Stretford & Urmston, as nine candidates vie to replace Labour MP, Kate Green.

Scotland’s deputy first minister and interim finance secretary John Swinney will unveil Scotland’s budget on Thursday afternoon, which will outline tax and spending plans for the 2023-24 tax year.

West London-based launderer, dry cleaner and valet service, Chelsea Green Valet, was honoured as the best ‘Counter Customer Service’ provider in the country at the 2022 Laundry and Drycleaning Awards [LADAs].

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Rishi Sunak said that his government had “consistently spoken to all the unions involved in all the pay disputes”, denying accusations from the opposition benches that ministers had stood idly by and let industrial action happen.

Official figures show that UK inflation has slowed to 10.7 per cent in the year to November 2022, having stood at 11.1 per cent in October.

The government's Cobra committee is convening for a second emergency meeting this week to hold further discussions on how to mitigate the impact of ongoing strikes.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to recruit more specialist personnel to clear the asylum system backlog by the end of next year, as well as informing MPs that changes to asylum law will be forthcoming.

Nurses are set to strike in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in December after showdown talks with ministers failed. Meanwhile, official figures have shown that some 417,000 working days were lost to strikes in October, the most recorded in more than 10 years.

Leading not-for-profit care and support organisation, the National Care Forum [NCF], has joined up with the Health Service Journal [HSJ] to form a series of articles alongside senior NHS leaders, which will highlight some of the major challenges facing the care industry.

The government will hold an emergency Cobra meeting on Monday to discuss contingency plans for when industrial action takes place in December.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the economy has contracted by 0.3 per cent between August and October, suggesting that the UK is officially set to enter recession after Q4.

Late last week, the UK government secured fishing catch limits worth £202 million after DEFRA struck a deal with the EU and Norway.

We look back at a weekly diary entry from October 2020 which featured in the Financial Times’ ‘Diary of an Adviser’ feature, penned by Keystone Financial managing director Harriet Mackenzie-Williams.