Three fiscal events within a period of a week is pretty much unprecedented. Two of these were on Wednesday 11 March when an expansionary Spring Budget was accompanied by a £12bn package of emergency measures. Less than a week later, the Chancellor announced a £20bn package of additional financial support, together with an initial £330bn in loans and guarantees to keep the economy operating.
As the #icaewchartoftheweek illustrates, this means that the forecast deficit for 2020-21 has more than doubled, from £40bn before the Budget to £84bn now.
It looks increasingly likely that the fiscal deficit in the coming year will exceed £100bn, potentially by a significant margin. Just a 2% drop in tax revenues would be enough to take the deficit over that level, even before the impact on welfare spending of job losses and income reductions, or the cost of writing down any loans or guarantees that are not repaid. Further financial support packages from the Chancellor over the weeks and months ahead are also likely.
Sit tight. This is going to be a bumpy ride for the public finances.
The sheer scale of the Spring Budget 2020 spending announcements are difficult to comprehend, but the #icaewchartoftheweek makes an attempt by illustrating their effect on the fiscal deficit compared with the previous forecast.
The budgeted deficit in the coming financial year is expected to increase by £15bn to £55bn, even before taking account of the emergency £12bn to respond to the coronavirus that was decided after the forecasts were finalised. The deficit is also expected to be much greater than the previous forecast in each of the subsequent years, albeit there was no previous official forecast for 2024-25.
The increase in the deficit in 2020-21 of £15bn reflects higher spending of £19bn less £1bn in higher taxes and £3bn in other forecast revisions. The spending increases in the subsequent four years are even greater, with an extra £46bn on average a year before taking account of £7bn a year in higher taxes, £8bn a year from the indirect boost to the economy that the incremental spending and investment should provide, as well as an average of £3bn a year in other forecast revisions.
The big uncertainty is how much the UK and global economies will be affected by the coronavirus pandemic in addition to the existing economic headwinds and changes in the trading relationships with other countries in the EU and elsewhere in 2021. These risks could potentially reduce tax revenues significantly, leading to even greater fiscal deficits than those presented by the Chancellor on Wednesday.
For more on Budget 2020 visit ICAEW’s dedicated Budget Hub. For the latest news and advice for accountants on the Covid-19 outbreak visit ICAEW’s Coronavirus hub.
6 March 2020: How can the Chancellor raise taxes in the forthcoming Spring Budget?
Traditionally, the first Budget after an election raises taxes and this would be a logical step given plans to increase public spending and investment in infrastructure. But which taxes could the Chancellor increase?
As the #icaewchartoftheweek illustrates, the top six taxes generate over 80% of tax receipts. But the Conservative manifesto rules out increases in the headline rates of income tax, national insurance and VAT, while increasing the corporation tax rate would be difficult given the planned cut from 19% to 17% has already been suspended. Most local authorities are already planning to increase council taxes as much as they can while increasing business rates would be really difficult.
We await the Budget to see what the Chancellor decides to do. Some money could be generated from increasing or introducing smaller taxes but for larger sums, the main place to look would be from reforming tax reliefs and exemptions, such as the rumoured abolition of Entrepreneurs’ Relief. However, it would be a brave Chancellor that decided to go after larger sums, for example by extending the scope of VAT.
Of course, the Chancellor might decide to cut taxes instead, hoping to boost a sluggish economy and so generate greater sums through higher levels of growth. Either way, borrowing is likely to increase – fortunately at extremely low interest rates.
21 February 2020: UK international reserves of £41bn analysed by currency.
The UK’s official holdings of foreign government debt, central bank deposits, IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and gold are the subject matter for the #icaewchartoftheweek, being the foreign currency assets and liabilities used in monetary operations.
The UK Government and the Bank of England together held £149bn in foreign currency assets as of 31 December 2019, equivalent to approximately two months’ public spending or just under 7% of gross national income. However, these assets were offset by £108bn in foreign currency liabilities, comprising £59bn in net financial derivatives (currency forwards, interest rate and cross-currency swaps), £23bn due on repo transactions and £26bn in other liabilities.
Even though the official reserves are an extremely important tool used to help ensure the smooth operation of financial markets, provide confidence in the UK’s financial stability and (if needed) support the value of sterling, the net balance of £41bn is relatively small, with £12bn invested in the Euro, £13bn in the US dollar and £6bn in the Yen and other currencies, together with £10bn of gold.
The #icaewchartoftheweek is about public sector employment, illustrating how just under 5.4m people work for public bodies in the UK or around 4.5m full-time equivalents (FTEs). This is 16.5% of the total UK workforce of 32.8m as of last September on a seasonally-adjusted basis.
The largest employer in the public sector is the NHS, with a headcount of 1.7m out of the 1.9m who work in the health and social work sector (1.5m FTEs). Included in the million or so people who work in public administration is the 451,000-strong Civil Service (419,000 FTEs) with most of the remaining 605,000 working for local authorities and non-departmental public bodies (FTEs 478,000).
Total public sector headcount has started to increase again in recent years with NHS and non-NHS headcount up 6.8% and 0.6% respectively over a nadir of 5.2m three years ago (up 2.5% overall), compared with an increase of 3.8% and a fall of 12.1% respectively over the previous seven years (down 7.8% overall between September 2009 and December 2016).
With increasing demand on the NHS from more people living longer and the ‘end of austerity’ we should expect to see further increases in public sector employment over the next few years.
The #icaewchartoftheweek is on inflation this week, with the Office for National Statistics reporting that consumer price inflation fell to 1.3% in December 2019 – its lowest level for over three years and towards the lower end of the Bank of England’s target range of 1% to 3%.
Accompanied by very low levels of economic growth, this has prompted speculation that the Bank of England may cut interest rates at some point this year to try and stimulate the economy. They may also be hoping that plans to boost infrastructure spending will help kick-start the economy and encourage a tad more inflation at the same time.
The Chancellor is currently consulting on plans to converge the statistically flawed Retail Prices Index with CPIH (CPI including housing) over the coming decade. This will be good news for commuters and some students, given RPI’s use in calculating fare increases and interest payments. However, it will be less good for many pensioners and holders of government debt who currently benefit from higher rates.
With recent changes in ICAEW communications, the ICAEW Public Sector team has started an #icaewchartofthemonth to complement the #icaewchartoftheweek.
The first #icaewchartofthemonth was published on the ICAEW’s Insights Hub (icaew.com/insights) on Friday 31 January 2020 and is on the UK’s international trade. It highlights how important the £718bn in imports and £673bn in exports in the year to 30 September 2019 are to the economy of the UK.
As the UK Government starts to negotiate new trade arrangements with countries around the world, the EU will be the highest priority. Imports into the UK of £369bn represent 51% of total imports and exports to the 27 EU countries of £297bn are 44% of total exports. This is followed by the USA, where imports of £87bn and exports of £133bn represent 12% and 20% respectively.
Trade relationships with countries in the Asia-Pacific region will also be very important, in particular China (imports £60bn and exports £39bn), Japan (£17bn and £15bn) and the 10-country Association of South East Asian Nations (£22bn and £19bn).
Concerned about the state of the UK economy? Then the latest retail sales numbers will not have helped, with fourth quarter sales in the UK mainland just 0.9% higher after inflation over a year earlier, as illustrated by the #icaewchartoftheweek.
With population growth still estimated to be running at around 0.6% a year, this implies that retail sales per capita in Q4 (at around £635 per month) were just 0.3% higher after inflation than the same period in 2018.
Sales in Q4 of £124.1bn comprised £41.3bn on food, drink and tobacco, £21.3bn on clothing and footwear, £19.6bn on household goods, £11.5bn on automotive fuel and £30.4bn on other non-food purchases. On a per capita basis, this is equivalent to approximately £210 per person per month on food, drink and tobacco, £110 on clothing and footwear, £100 on household goods, £60 on automotive fuel and £155 on other non-food purchases.
This low level of growth on a year earlier reflects a slow-down in retail activity in the fourth quarter of 2019, with the Office for National Statistics reporting that Q4 sales were 0.9% lower than the third quarter on a seasonally-adjusted basis.
This will feed into fourth quarter GDP, which will not be good news for the Chancellor as he puts together what is being rumoured to be a radical first Budget in March – a weak economy will reduce his room for manoeuvre to reform the tax system while boosting public spending at the same time.
The #icaewchartoftheweek this week is on the subject of public sector capital expenditure across the UK in the light of speculation that the Spring Budget in March will feature a significant boost to capital spending in the North of England.
We thought it might be interesting to look at the most recent data; albeit the usual caveats apply to the numbers given the lack of formal systems in government to fully track expenditure by region and the differences between capital expenditure in the fiscal numbers (shown in the chart) and the capital expenditure reported in the (as yet unpublished) Whole of Government Accounts for 2018-19.
According to the ONS, there was £64.2bn in capital expenditure that can be identified by nation and region of the UK, an average of £967 for the 66.4m people living in the UK in 2018-19.
It is perhaps not surprising that there is more capital spending in London than the per capita average given that the millions of commuters and visitors that add to the 8.9m local population every day. However, the scale of the difference is substantial with £13bn invested in 2018-19, an average of £1,456 per person – £489 more than the UK average.
Of course, variations in capital expenditure are to be expected across a country of the size of the UK given the different natures and needs of each region and nation. For example, Scotland’s much higher level of per capita public capital expenditure (£7.2bn / 5.4m people = £1,325 per person) needs to be seen in the context that it comprises a third of the land area of the entire UK, but only has 8% of the population.
The region that incurs the least capital expenditure on a per capita basis is the East Midlands, where £3.0bn was spent in 2018-19, an average of £621 per person (£346 less than the average) for each of the 4.8m people living there. This is followed by Yorkshire and The Humber (£694 per person), the South West (£723) and the West Midlands (£799).
Most of the other regions are close to the average, including (perhaps surprisingly given some of the headlines), the North East and the North West.
One question that does come to mind – if Government’s intention is to rebalance regional inequalities by investing more in the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ and the ‘Midlands Engine’, will it have anything to spare for the ‘Great South West’ too?
2018-19
Capex
Population
Per capita
Difference from average
North East
£2.4bn
2.7m
£906
-£61
North West
£7.0bn
7.3m
£955
-£12
Yorkshire and The Humber
£3.8bn
5.5m
£694
-£273
East Midlands
£3.0bn
4.8m
£621
-£346
West Midlands
£4.7bn
5.9m
£799
-£168
East of England
£5.7bn
6.2m
£924
-£43
London
£13.0bn
8.9m
£1,456
+£489
South East
£8.6bn
9.1m
£945
-£22
South West
£4.0bn
5.6m
£723
-£244
Wales
£3.0bn
3.1m
£956
-£11
Scotland
£7.2bn
5.4m
£1,325
+£358
Northern Ireland
£1.8bn
1.9m
£949
-£18
United Kingdom
£64.2bn
66.4m
£967
–
Source: ONS, Country and regional public sector finances 2018-19: identifiable capital expenditure.
2020 is likely to be an interesting year for many reasons, but in Europe all eyes will be on UK and EU negotiators as they attempt to agree a new trading relationship following the ending of the UK’s membership of the European Union at the end of this month.
As illustrated by the #icaewchartoftheweek, the UK is currently the third largest of the 32 members of the ‘European Single Market’, a trade bloc that comprises the 28 European Union member states and the four European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members.
The UK appears be aiming for a more distant trading relationship than that it currently enjoys as a EU member or that enjoyed by the 4 EFTA nations (three of which are members of the European Economic Area and the fourth – Switzerland – which has a series of bilateral agreements to give it access to the Single Market). Despite that, there are still a wide range of potential outcomes ranging from no agreement through to a much closer set of trading arrangements across multiple industries.
From a trade perspective, nothing much will change on 31 January when the UK formally ends it membership of the EU as the UK will continue to participate fully in the Single Market (as well as the EU Customs Union) until the end of the year. It will only be on 1 January 2021 that any new trade arrangements will come into force, changing the way that people and businesses operate across borders.
For now, it is very difficult to predict what exiting the Single Market will mean for the 67m people in the UK or the 462m people remaining in the Single Market. However, one prediction that can be made is that there will be plenty of opportunities for wild – and no doubt contradictory – headlines as the negotiators set to work!
