Our reaction to the Autumn Statement

Here were my comments on what I thought were the key points of the Autumn Statement:

1. Raising the pension age sooner than previously planned will be unpopular, but it is the right thing to do. With an ageing population we will experience a fiscal crisis unless we raise the pensions age and, ultimately, move to a system of private pensions savings accounts so the system is robust to any demographic shifts.
2. Borrowing has been £111bn in 2013/14, which is equivalent to £304m/day or £12.6m/hour. It’s great that the deficit is falling faster than previously (though not originally) projected, but the numbers are still staggering.
3. The economy is recovering, but compared to this point in previous recoveries, growth is still sluggish. The Bank of England’s mandate is muddled and should be replaced with a single target to stabilise aggregate demand and return nominal GDP to the level it was growing towards before the financial crisis. This would also offset the effects of government cuts, stopping the cuts from having any negative macroeconomic impact. (Ben Southwood, Head of Macro Policy, comments further below.)
4. The cap on total welfare spending seems like a PR stunt. It will be modified every year and doesn’t make much sense in any case: what happens if/when negative economic shocks create lots of unexpected unemployment?
5. The development budget was heralded, but the best tool for development is letting in more immigrants from poor countries, because immigrants send money home – indeed, they sent 3 times as much money to poor countries as was sent in total official aid last year. And this is good for our economy too.
6. It’s bizarre to give LIBOR fines to charities. It simply makes no sense. What's the connection between LIBOR and military charities?
7. The pensions triple lock is about buying votes. Many pensioners don’t need more money and there is no real reason to redistribute wealth to them over other groups in society.
8. Help to Buy and other expanded mortgage subsidies completely miss the cause of expensive housing. If more houses are built (increasing supply) then prices will fall. This will happen if we liberalise the planning system. Throwing money at the housing market will drive prices up and do little to increase supply. Rolling the Green Belt back by one mile would free up enough land to build one million new homes.
9. Corporation tax is a terrible tax and, though the government’s cuts are welcome, it should be abolished altogether. Corporation tax largely falls on workers’ wages and as such it is an invisible and regressive tax on earnings.
10. The Chancellor’s confirmation that the personal allowance will rise to £10,000 is good news, but the government should go further and peg it to the minimum wage rate to reduce the tax burden on the working poor and help to make work pay.
11. Cutting employers’ National Insurance contributions for workers under 21 is a good move and highlights the cost of employer NICs to jobs. Employer NICs are a jobs tax and the government should be aiming to abolish them altogether.
12. Ultimately, there was no mention of reform to planning, immigration or monetary policy – the three things most important to Britain’s economic prospects. The Chancellor has done a good job at balancing the books but he should look to making significant structural reforms that would really get the country booming: liberalising planning to allow hundreds of thousands of extra homes to be built; scrapping the net migration cap to allow talented immigrants to work here and fee-paying foreign students to study here; and giving the Bank of England a new mandate to target Nominal GDP to ensure a stable macroeconomic environment.

Ben Southwood, Head of Macro Policy at the Institute, also commented:

"It's understandable, now that the economy looks finally to be recovering, that the chancellor has moved his focus away from monetary policy, but it's also worrying.

"Economies can absorb financial crises but they cannot absorb inconsistent monetary policy and massive drops in demand. We need George Osborne to change the Bank of England's remit, requiring it to stabilise demand according to strict rules.

"A rule-based monetary policy will stop the economy from overheating into unsustainable booms, and dive-bombing into harsh recessions."