Tick tock, tick tock, the clock is counting down. In just over a month we will brace ourselves for yet another assault on our wealth and financial independence.

This time around it won’t be Rachel Reeves who will be bashing up our finances and ruining our retirement – or retirement dreams. Instead, it will be John Healey who as Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver Labour’s third horrible Budget in as many years.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter who the Chancellor is (it could be Ken Dodd if he was still alive) because Labour, socialist Labour, is gunning for our investments, wealth and homes.

If only time could stand still, or, even better, go back to when Labour was no more than a weak party in Opposition.

Healey has already indicated his guns are trained firmly on our wealth by stating that next month’s Budget will be a ‘tough’ one.

And he will come up with the usual Labour excuses as to why tough measures are needed.

He will blame continued hostilities in the Middle East for the country’s parlous state rather than the Government’s awful anti-business stance which has heaped costs on employers and caused the economy to limp along like someone who has just strained their Achilles heel.

Of course, there will be no mention of Labour’s reluctance to tackle a soaring welfare bill, even if it leaves our defences in a sorry state and Government borrowing costs reaching for the skies.

For Prime Minister Andy Burnham to suggest that spending on social security is a greater priority than the nation’s security is as naïve as it is dangerous.

God help us.

So we’re heading for yet more tax increases to shore up the Government’s finances and sadly (unfairly, I’d say) it will be taxpayers – Middle Englanders – who yet again will be asked to shoulder them.

That means the young and old, the aspiring and aspired, and everyone in between. It means those who work for a living, own their own home and put money aside for the future – as well as those of us who have been prudent all our lives and are now enjoying retirement or semi-retirement.

Although Healey has so far been tight-lipped about what tax hikes he has up his sleeve, I imagine his phalanx of Treasury advisers will be leaking a few details ahead of the Budget on Wednesday, October 28 (aka doomsday). 

They can’t help themselves, based on the tittle tattle they have come up with over the past two years.

No doubt, rumours about a restriction in the right for people to take a chunk of tax-free cash from their pension fund will surface again, as they did in the previous two Budgets.

In the run up to the 2024 Budget, some £10billion of ‘excess’ tax-free cash was taken by investors fearful of an imminent crackdown.

No clampdown came, leaving tens of thousands of savers with money that would have been better left invested in their pension fund – and not suddenly exposed to tax. The same happened last year.

Maybe Healey will hear investing giant AJ Bell’s passionate call for him to make a ‘pre-Budget’ commitment not to turn the screw on the right to tax-free cash. But maybe not.

Don’t wait until Budget day. You need to start protecting yourself now

 

Hi, I’m Simon Lambert, publisher of This Is Money. I want to warn you that your pension, savings and property could soon be under attack. 

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On October 28, Andy Burnham’s government will set out the Budget. We don’t know what they will do, but we do know about tax raids already on the way. The best thing you can do is get prepared. So I’ve called on some of Britain’s leading financial experts to create my new six-week plan. I’ll cut through the noise and take you step-by-step through everything you need to do to protect your money. 

Don’t wait. Click here and sign up to Protect Your Money now.

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And if I was a betting man, I’d put my garden shed on him pushing up rates of capital gains tax on profits from second homes, buy-to-lets and investments so they are aligned with income tax rates.

It’s a move that most Left-leaning think tanks have been calling for since I wore shorts to school. 

I am sure its announcement in the Budget would result in many Labour MPs partying late into the night. Negronis all round (nice and red). 

For diehard socialists, utopia. For us, yet another spiteful attack on thrift.

What we do know for certain, because Healey has already said it, is that there will be no breaking of Labour’s 2024 manifesto which pledged not to increase ‘National Insurance, the basic, higher or additional rates of income tax, or VAT.’ Thank you for small mercies.

But there’s far more we know about what lies ahead taxation-wise as we march towards the end of Labour’s term in office in 2029 (of course Burnham could call a snap election before then).

There are a myriad of tax rises coming that are set in stone, but which we can plan for and, in most cases, take action to mitigate – with the aid, of course, of our brilliant Money team at the Daily Mail and This is Money.

These tax rises were of Reeves’ creation and come in the form of a series of tax bombs with in-built detonators designed to go off at specific times.

The tax raids coming from April 2027

The first batch of these detonators goes off in April, when the new tax year kicks off.

So, from April 6, tax on savings interest will jump by two percentage points, resulting in new tax rates for basic, higher and additional rate taxpayers of 22, 42 and 47 per cent.

Savage? Yes, but basic and higher rate taxpayers should still be able to shield, respectively, £1,000 and £500 of annual savings interest from these new tax rates through use of their personal savings allowance. 

I say this in the expectation (no, hope) that these allowances won’t be chipped away at or removed altogether by Healey (don’t rule it out).

These same higher tax rates will also apply to rental income earned by landlords (Labour truly hates landlords).

Saving into a cash Isa will be restricted at the same time – with only those aged 65 or over still being able to squirrel away up to £20,000 in any one tax year.

For all other adults, they will be allowed to put only a maximum £12,000 a tax year into a cash Isa. If they want to maximise their £20,000 allowance, they will have to run a stocks & shares Isa alongside their cash Isa. 

While stocks & shares Isas and Junior Isas will keep their respective maximum annual allowances of £20,000 and £9,000, managing the former will become far more challenging for investors.

This is because Labour has decided to introduce a flat 22 per cent tax charge on all interest earned from cash held inside a stocks and shares Isa. 

Both a bewildering move and a dent in the tax-free label that makes Isas so attractive.

Yet probably the most damaging tax ‘bomb’ that will ignite in the next tax year will be that affecting on any unused pensions when people die. For the first time, they will fall into the inheritance tax (IHT) fishing net.

As I’ve said before, the taxation of such pension pots will be nothing short of egregious.

For some beneficiaries, it will result in the proceeds from an inherited pension fund (where the plan holder was aged 75 or more) being subject to both 40 per cent IHT and income tax.

In the most extreme of cases, 91 per cent of an inherited pension fund could be lost to tax.

Whatever happens in John Healey and Andy Burnham’s first Budget, there is already a painful series of tax raids coming that were orchestrated by Rachel Reeves 

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Finally, we now learn that staycations in England will become more expensive towards the end of this tax year as a result of mayors being free to impose an uncapped tax on visitors staying in their regions. 

Where mayors don’t exist, new ‘foundation strategic authorities’ will be able to levy the tax.

Labour says the levy will not exceed 5 per cent, but the tax will still make holidays more expensive for hard-working families. Accommodation providers, especially independent B&Bs, could also be hit if holidaymakers are deterred from staying in the UK.

Similar tourist levies are already charged in Edinburgh and are set to be introduced in Wales just ahead of England.

In Reeves’s defence, this new tax will not be of her doing: the finger points at Burnham, Healey and Local Government Secretary Angela Rayner.

And a year later… more tax raids

Reeves’s detonators are far from spent when the tax year to April 2028 comes to an end. 

A new mansion tax will then kick in, landing those with homes worth £2million or more with annual bills up to £7,500.

Then, a year later, a new stealth tax will be imposed on salary sacrifice pension plans offered by many employers. The upshot is that many employees and employers will end up paying more in NI. Yes, more bloody tax!

So what can you do?

All rather scary? Absolutely – I’ve got into a right old flap just writing this article.

And I’ve not even mentioned the tax consequences of Burnham’s wish to ‘fix’ the social care crisis through the creation of a ‘national care service’. 

Reform of social care, the Prime Minister has already said, will require ‘difficult decisions’ – which is code for some form of tax rise. When it will all be decided is anyone’s guess. 

But in the meantime, between 30,000 and 40,000 people a year will be forced to sell their home to fund their long-term care costs.

To the good news, dear readers. There is a lot you can do to protect your wealth from what is coming down the road in the weeks, months and years ahead.

Most of it is centred around good, old-fashioned financial planning. For example:

– Ensuring your family assets (everything from pensions, investments and savings) are set up in the most tax advantageous way possible and are best in class in terms of the deal (investment growth, interest rate) they give;

– Taking full advantage of saving and investment tax-breaks (for example, Isas and pensions). Not just for you and your spouse or partner, but for your children via Junior Isas and pensions (yes, pensions);

– Making sure your existing Isas are fit for purpose ahead of the rule changes in April;

– Having up-to-date wills and being aware of a multitude of gift allowances that can help mitigate IHT bills further down the line (especially given the inclusion of unused pension funds in IHT calculations from April);

– Maybe downsizing your home to mitigate the mansion tax – or releasing equity to support your retirement finances;

– And finding out how to plan for the possibility – not probability – of care costs in later life.

Our brilliant six-part newsletter series, written by my colleague Simon Lambert, in the weeks leading up to the Budget and in its immediate aftermath will cover all these areas: IHT, pensions, savings and investments, property, care costs and later-life planning, and what the Budget means for you.

It will be essential reading, drawing upon a mix of the country’s best Money team’s extensive personal finance knowledge and that of leading financial experts. It’s unmissable.

More importantly, it will put you in a better place to mitigate the impact of the tax detonators coming all our way.

Protect Your Money – sign-up to our six-week plan 

The Budget is coming – but are you prepared? Sign up to our six-week plan and Simon Lambert and his team of financial experts will reveal how to Protect Your Money. If you’re a subscriber, it’s completely FREE 

> Sign-up to Protect Your Money 

The pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene

A driver who hit and killed a pedestrian before fleeing the scene has been sent to prison. Marcin Pilarski, 36, hit Sam Pope, 28, as he walked along Oil Mills Road in Ramsey Mereside just before 11pm on May 11, 2024.

It was only reported to police when another driver saw Mr Pope, of Lincoln Road, Peterborough, lying in the road and called 999. But despite the best efforts of the emergency services, he was declared dead at the scene.

Paying tribute to him at the time, Mr Pope’s family said: “Sam was a free spirit, who liked to live his life at 100mph and believed that rules were meant to be broken.

“We shall miss his smile and crazy sense of humour that would always make you laugh, despite what mood you were in that day. Sam was a rough diamond with a heart made of gold and will leave a big hole in our lives.”

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At around 11.40pm on the same evening, police were called by Pilarski’s partner, who told them he’d returned home in her Vauxhall Astra which was badly damaged. She reported that it had a smashed windscreen and headlamp and that there was blood on the front of the car.

She said they lived around 15 minutes, or 9.5 miles from the scene of the crash. When police visited the address, they also saw the damaged car, and Pilarski, of Sorrell Avenue, Whittlesey, was arrested in relation to the fatal crash.

In a statement, Pilarski’s partner said that he had called her at 11pm and told her he had “hit or killed somebody” who was in the road, but she had to end the call becasue he was screaming. When he returned home, she told him they needed to call the police, and he said, “I know”.

In police interview, Pilarski answered no comment to most questions, but later pleaded guilty to causing death by driving without a licence or insurance. He was sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court on September 17 to one year and three months in prison. He has also been disqualified from driving for four years and six months.

In a victim impact statement taken into consideration by the court, Mr Pope’s family said they were angry that Pilarski didn’t seem remorseful and hadn’t apologised for his actions.

The statement added: “We hope the memory of the night keeps him up at night like it does us. I don’t really know how as a family we will ever come to terms with this.”

Detective Inspector Craig Wheeler, who investigated, said: “Pilarski made a conscious decision to drive his partner’s car without a licence or insurance. He should never have put himself behind the wheel of a car and my thoughts and sympathies remain with the family and friends of Mr Pope, who needlessly lost his life at such a young age.

“No sentence will ever ease the pain of their loss, but I hope the case acts as a stark reminder against getting behind the wheel while uninsured or without a licence. Just one journey could end in tragedy.”

Trump will aim to achieve other deals around trade and tariffs – like lowering Chinese tariffs on American products, increasing imports of Chinese rare earth minerals, and increasing exports of US agricultural products, according to David Firestein of the Bush China Foundation.

But China appears have reneged on promises to buy more American agricultural products and to sell more rare earth minerals to the US.

Firestein expects Xi to encourage Trump to further stall – or kill – a congressionally approved $14bn (£10.5bn)-arms sale to Taiwan and deepen US-China trade integration.

These are the same US-China issues for the ages, he said, but, this time, “there seems to be a greater degree of, let’s say, stability within the relationship, or less volatility relative to where we were last year in 2025”.

Xi’s visit comes at a time when American attitudes towards China appear to be warming.

A recent poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs indicated that 41% of Americans see China’s territorial ambitions as a threat to the US. That number is down from 52% in 2022.

More than half of Americans – 57% – believe the US should cooperate and engage with Beijing. Notably, that statistic cuts across the US political spectrum.

Of Republicans who do not identify as Maga, 57% favour cooperation, as do most Democrats, both moderate and liberal.

However most of Trump’s loyal base – 63% – favour limiting US relations with China, putting them at odds with his warm welcome of Xi.

Aside from the arrival ceremonies at the White House, Melania Trump has also planned a visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art to show her Chinese counterpart the cultural connections between the two countries.

The landmark visit will end on a historical note at the National Archives building where the couples will view important records including those of “significant to the American and Chinese relationship,” the White House has said.

With additional reporting from Brandon Drenon

“It’s the people and the service we deliver, and just to leave us high and dry, it’s quite a sad situation to be in, really. You don’t feel valued.”
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She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that “because we are on zero-hours contracts and the uncertainty, there may be no staff left when the lift reopens”.
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At a meeting of Scarborough Town Council on Tuesday, members resolved to write to North Yorkshire Council requesting that it urgently set out a timeline for its reopening.

North Yorkshire Council’s corporate director of community development, Nic Harne, said the authority had ensured that staff were kept informed and updated throughout the closure and that the council had held discussions about alternative duties and opportunities within Scarborough Spa itself.

“The cliff lift’s staff are employed on relief-hour contracts rather than zero-hours contracts. As part of our ongoing workforce planning, we regularly review working patterns and, where colleagues are consistently working regular hours, we consider opportunities to provide greater certainty through contracted hours, where appropriate,” he told the LDRS.

“Once we have established a timetable for the necessary works, we will continue to work closely with staff and provide regular updates.”

Scarborough’S Spa Cliff Lift. Courtesy North Yorkshire Council.

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Cllr Rich Maw, a town councillor who is also a member of North Yorkshire Council, told the meeting: “Officers have said they may be able to reopen the lift in a phased way.

“They’re exploring those options, and obviously it’s paramount that safety has to come first.”
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He added: “Officers are telling me that having looked at the report and got to this stage, they are seriously exploring that option.

“Now, for me, members and the public will know that I have been calling for a replacement shuttle bus in the meantime.”

However, Ms Wynne-Riley, who said she has effectively been made unemployed following the Spa Cliff Lift’s closure, described having heard “absolutely nothing from anybody” and added “we’ve just been forgotten about”.
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Speaking to the LDRS, the “loyal employee” said she and other staff had been “left in limbo” by North Yorkshire Council (NYC) and that she has raised an HR complaint with the authority.
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She added: “It’s not just a case of looking after the asset; you need to look after the staff on the asset because that is really important.

Claire Wynne-Riley, Employee At Spa Cliff Lift. Courtesy Anttoni James Numminen, LDRS.

“We’ve got the knowledge and the experience; we have a member of staff that’s been here 27 years.”
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Thomas Murray, the town mayor of Scarborough, said he was “appalled” by the way staff at the cliff lift had been treated and urged the unitary authority to “do right by the employees”
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The mayor said: “Staff are on zero-hours contracts, so they’re not getting any money now that they’re out of work while it’s been closed.

“You’re going to start to see employees that have been there for over two decades start to leave their employment because they need to feed their families.”
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He told the LDRS: “So, we’ve requested that the Scarborough Town Council get urgent correspondence on the repair of this from NYC.

“But it’s not about Scarborough Town Council. It’s about the residents of Scarborough, the community that is incredibly distraught that another heritage asset for Scarborough has been closed.”
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At Tuesday’s meeting, a resident living at Esplanade Gardens said her partner was waiting for a hip operation and “can’t get down to the sea without the cliff lift”.
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She added: “I just think it’s disgusting, actually, that a 150-year-old enterprise in the 400th year of Scarborough and this is what happens.”
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Cllr Carl Les, the leader of North Yorkshire Council, said: “We know how much affection people have for the Scarborough Spa Cliff Lift and the important role it plays in the town’s heritage and identity.

“For many residents and visitors, it also provides an important link between the Esplanade and South Bay, helping people access the seafront more easily.

“We are continuing to assess the lift following its closure last month after an engineering assessment identified issues affecting its infrastructure and critical components.

“Since receiving the maintenance report, we have been working with specialist consultants to better understand the issues and what options may be available.

“We are now building a clearer understanding of the work that may be needed and the likely costs involved. We hope to provide more details in the coming weeks before a formal decision is made on any future programme of repairs.

“As part of this work, we are also exploring whether there are any essential repairs that could be carried out to allow the lift to reopen safely and as quickly as possible, while longer-term options are considered.”
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The lift dates from the Victorian era and was built in 1875 at a cost of about £8,000.
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The authority said that although the lift had undergone routine inspections and maintenance over the years, the latest engineering survey took a more detailed look at the condition of the tracks, carriages, and associated infrastructure.
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Its coastal location exposes it to salt-laden air, strong winds, and harsh weather conditions, all of which contribute to accelerated wear and corrosion.
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NYC said it will continue to review the findings and will provide further updates in due course.