Francesco Masala

The briefing includes an overview of the bill’s three substantive clauses, background information, reaction, and analysis of the potential impact of the bill

The front page of the Library briefing. It reads ‘National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill 2024-25, and a photo of the Treasury building in London

Yesterday we published a briefing on the upcoming employer National Insurance contributions Bill - second reading is next week ⬇️

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

Clauses + schedules that will be debate in committee of the whole house relate to:
- Capital gains tax and reliefs
- Energy profits levy
- VAT on private schools
- changes to stamp duty land tax (particularly the increase in the SDLT rate on purchases of additional dwellings)

See link below ⬇️

The government has also announced clauses that will be debated in committee of the whole house (essentially, clauses that parties want to discuss with enhanced scrutiny, where the Commons sits as a committee where all MPs are members of the committee

Autumn Budget 2024 and Finance Bill 2024-25 The Budget was delivered by Chancellor Rachel Reeves on 30 October 2024. The Finance Bill 2024-25 is due to receive its second reading on 27 November.

The second reading of the Finance Bill is taking place right now: you can follow along on www.parliamentlive.tv/Commons

We've published an overview of the Bill here: commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

Since he’s not here my colleague David Torrance has just published a paper that’s the result of a year long exercise of trying to ‘map’ or rather identify and summarise all the various sources of the UK constitution.

He’s asked for feedback on any omissions/errors etc

t.co/dl1BC68Pc0

☀️

In the old days, it was traditional for the Leader of the Opposition to host a Christmas party for Commons Library staff, to show appreciation for our work. My first one, was also Tony Blair's first one, so I guess 1994. I remember Tony Blair seeming quite nervous at being introduced to us all...

GPs and care homes fear impact of National Insurance rise after Budget The NHS is exempt from the rise in employer National Insurance contributions, but private providers are not.

Writing about national insurance and the changes announced in the Budget at the moment.

Worth noting that the NHS and the public sector are *not* exempted from the rise in employer NICs (like the article says) - instead the govt compensates them back for the extra cost

Reminder to check @metoffice.bsky.social’s forecast before cycling to work 👎

Just published an update to my briefing on stamp duty land tax (SDLT), outlining the changes announced at the Budget and implemented on 31 October ⬇️

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

The OBR estimates the total yield of the reform will be reduced by 40% in 2029/30 because of behavioural responses (but this also includes responses to the change of the IHT treatment of pensions)

See obr.uk/docs/dlm_upl... [8/8]

- an increase in asset disposal before death
- an increase in the use of other reliefs [7/8]

is because behavioural responses are not taken into account here. The OBR outlined its estimated behavioural response on para 3.22, p58 of the Oct 2024 Economic and Fiscal Outlook. The OBR accounted for:
- a significant increase of the use of the spousal exemption
- ... [6/8]

Looking at the reforms (changes to APR, BPR, and AIM shares), compared to a 'do-nothing' scenario, 2,000 more estates are expected to pay more tax. 520 of these are expected to contain APR claims.

CHX was clear the difference between this and the official costing certified by the OBR ... [5/8]

The letter adds that an expected 520 estates (claiming APR, including those that claim both APR and BPR) would be impacted by the reform per year. 71% of estates claiming APR (including BPR where both are claimed) would be unaffected (76% if estates claiming AIM shares are excluded) [4/8]

Reeves added that from existing data, around 25% of estates claiming for APR and BPR include a claim for AIM shares. She added that it's likely these estates are at least partly investment portfolios aiming to reduce IHT liabilities, rather than entire farming businesses [3/8]

The Chancellor explained the apparent discrepancy between HMRC and Defra data. Broadly, it is hard to estimate inheritance tax liabilities from data on the asset value of farms.

CHX said data on APR claims from previous years "is the correct way to understand an inheritance tax liability" [2/8]

The Chancellor has written to the Treasury Committee detailing the impact of the proposed changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) [1/8] ⬇️

committees.parliament.uk/publications...

Second reading of the finance bill has been provisionally scheduled for 27 November ⬇️

The new alcohol duty system https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9765/

VAT on private school fees https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10125/