Spring Budget 2024_GK Strategy
The GK team react to the Chancellor’s Spring Budget, with GK Strategic Advisers offering their insight into what this means for the Conservative Party in the run up to the General Election, what the budget means for individuals, as well as the announcement’s wider impact on key British industries.
To read our briefing please use the link above or click here.
GK Associate Hugo Tuckett reviews GK Strategy’s Private Equity Breakfast, where the Spring Budget and the general election were key discussion topics.
Will Jeremy Hunt use the Budget to put Labour on the back foot?
On Tuesday 27 February, GK Strategy was delighted to host professionals across private equity, corporate finance and wider deal advisory at a panel event to discuss what we can expect in politics over the next 12 months. The panel included The Rt Hon. David Laws, former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Chris Giles, Economics Commentator at The Financial Times. The discussion was chaired by GK’s CEO, Louise Allen.
A key theme of the discussion was the Government’s priorities for the upcoming Budget. The panellists agreed that challenges within the UK’s public finances would limit the Chancellor’s flexibility to implement wide-ranging tax cuts in the months leading up to the General Election.
Instead, they argued that the Government would prioritise smaller, targeted tax cuts that would create a dividing line with Labour. A reduction or phasing out of inheritance tax was touted as the one area where the main opposition party would struggle to match the Conservatives.
Labour’s immediate fiscal priorities, should it win the upcoming General Election, were also addressed by the panel. David Laws suggested that the Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, would have to decide whether to follow Gordon Brown’s approach post-1997 and commit to a Conservative government’s tight spending plans, or as was the case post-2010, label the previous administration financially irresponsible and introduce a series of tax rises and spending cuts to balance the books.
He later suggested that the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, might try to use the next few months to lay a series of traps for Labour, such as a commitment to reduce income tax in April 2025, in an attempt to create some separation between the two parties ahead of polling day.
Please get in touch via (hugo@gkstrategy.com) if you are interested in attending future events or would like to set up a call to discuss the year ahead in politics.