The Finance Bill is a government bill intended to give the tax measures announced in the spring budget 2020 lasting statutory effect.
Finance Bill: Briefing for Lords Stages (172 KB , PDF)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, presented the spring 2020 budget to the House of Commons on 11 March 2020. The Finance Bill is intended to give lasting statutory effect to the tax measures announced in that budget.
The bill falls within the category known formally as “bills of aids and supplies”, in which “aids” refers to taxation and “supplies” refers to government expenditure. The House of Commons has a special role in such bills, known as “financial privilege”. This means, in practice, that only the Commons can initiate such bills and Lords consideration is limited. In particular, the House of Lords may not amend such bills. While the Lords will have a debate at second reading, later stages will go through formally, without debate.
Although the budget deals with public spending as well as taxation, the procedure by which Parliament scrutinises and approves government expenditure is separate to the Finance Bill.
Finance Bill: Briefing for Lords Stages (172 KB , PDF)
This briefing is the fifth of a series on the post-war history of the UK economy. The series proceeds decade-by-decade from the 1950s onwards, providing an overview of the key macroeconomic developments of each decade. This fifth briefing looks at the 1990s. In this decade the UK economy settled into a period of low inflation and steady growth; however, living standards growth was lower and more regionally concentrated than in previous decades.
The Budget Responsibility Bill would require ministers to request an assessment from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for every major fiscal announcement and give the OBR the power to decide to publish one if the minister failed to request it. This follows the September 2022 ‘mini-budget’. The statement included plans that would have resulted in a projected £45bn reduction in tax income. It did not have an accompanying OBR assessment.
In November 2023, the Harrington review of foreign direct investment made recommendations about how the UK could attract more cross-border investment. The new Labour government has said tackling barriers to investment is a priority.
