The week to 25 October 2026
Most of this week was the run-up to Healey's Budget on 28 October, and four of our seven pieces judged measures reported to be in it. The other three were outside the Treasury, on Rosebank, Chinese electric cars and Thames Water, and none of them has a final decision yet.
This week's pieces
Taking back a concession granted alongside the corporation tax rise is defensible. But 8% on top of 25% corporation tax would tax bank profits harder than before 2023. The TUC's £2.25bn estimate is also more than double the OBR-certified cost of the 2021 cut, and above what last year's receipts imply.
Topping up a rebate that already reaches around 6 million households is the quickest way to help the poorest before January. But households just above the benefits line get nothing.
The demand to restore 10% rests on a real behavioural point. But the Treasury judged the relief poor value before its rate rose, and nobody has said who pays for restoring it.
Part of the saving can come from grant money the scheme will not spend this year, with no household losing out. Cutting the £7,500 and £9,000 rates nine months after the Warm Homes Plan would undercut the plan's own goals.
Refusing to copy the EU's rates on request is the right call. Leaving the option open, with no UK investigation and the electric-car target running behind, is not a decision.
Jackdaw's gas enters the UK grid. Rosebank is mostly export oil with around seven times the emissions, so refusal follows from the government's own reasoning, which it has never written down as a test.
Withholding approval has already produced a better offer. But ministers have published no costing of their own for administration and set no decision date, so delay is becoming a policy of its own.
Also happened
- Median hourly pay grew 5.9% in the year to April. Holding the minimum wage at two-thirds of that would mean about £13.40 next year, the Resolution Foundation said. Source. It passed all three tests but lost out to the bank surcharge and energy bill pieces, and I expect it back once the rate is set.
- Burnham told MPs he had asked the Chancellor and the Energy Secretary to look at removing standing charges from gas bills and report back, with no decision or timetable. Source. It passed, but with nothing decided there was no verdict to give yet.
- Ministers proposed replacing an 1885 law on damaging undersea cables with jail terms, unlimited fines and a power to direct cable firms in a security emergency, with no bill yet. Source. It failed the second test, because almost nobody argues against protecting cables, so there was no verdict a reasonable person would dispute.
- Miatta Fahnbulleh said she backs Shabana Mahmood's migration policy after joking at a journalists' event that she had struggled to defend it. Source. It failed the first test, since a minister clarifying a joke is not a decision, a vote or a demand, and there was nothing to propose instead.
Updates
Coming up
- The Budget. It should settle the bank surcharge rate, the Warm Home Discount top-up, Business Asset Disposal Relief and the heat pump grant rates, so four pieces get tested in one afternoon. The OBR's costing of the bank measure is the number to set against the TUC's £2.25bn.
- DESNZ publishes Boiler Upgrade Scheme statistics for September, the day after the Budget. They will show whether grant payments are catching up with this year's £400m, which decides how much unspent money the heat pump piece's proposal could return.
- First gas from Jackdaw, which the government expects to reach homes from the end of October. The date is not fixed, so treat this as a window rather than a deadline.