The Budget Breakdown - Episode 10 In-depth Reaction

Mark and Norman discussing the latest UK 2025 Budget. The conversation highlights a chaotic lead-up with leaks and political manoeuvring. Key points include frozen income tax thresholds until 2031, increased taxes on savings, property income and dividends, and changes to ISA limits. Employment measures cover the removal of homeworking tax relief, minimum wage rises, and future restrictions on salary sacrifice. Business topics include adjustments to capital allowances and investment schemes, with criticism of the absence of a clear growth strategy. Inheritance and capital tax changes reduce certain reliefs, while compliance efforts aim to raise £10 billion annually. 

For more information on this topic and more, please visit www.mercia-group.com for further details.

Transcript

Hello.

We're on the, uh, final installment of this little series of podcasts to do with the budget and the budget process.

And, um, if any of you listened over the last few weeks, uh, it's been a fairly chaotic lead up.

Uh, we were just saying, you know, more leaks than my eighty four year old dad in an evening.

Um, but then you get to budget night and or budget day.

Budget night.

And we, as with everybody, we were sat there watching Prime Minister's Questions.

I was watching BBC Prime Minister's Questions, and they suddenly cut away from Prime Minister's questions for them to say, oh, well, the budget has been leaked, uh, which kind of sums up the whole process.

You know, it's like the wheels keep coming off.

Um, Norman said, with me, uh, you'll all know Norman, uh, just to discuss the sort of main announcements and the thing that struck me, um, I was it was a couple of weeks before, and I know it was a Monday because I was lecturing in the afternoon, and there was this headline that Rachel Reeves is going to make a public announcement at ten past eight on a Monday morning, I think.

Blimey, I better watch this rather strange twenty minutes of it's not my fault, it's really bad.

Followed by the next day it's going to be two P in the pound, which of course then hasn't happened.

Yeah.

Um, but the thing she said at the time, the priorities of the British people apparently were the NHS cutting debt and cost of living.

Yeah.

Do you think she meant any of those, norm, in this budget.

Out of interest.

Because.

Not quite.

No no no.

I'm not sure.

Everybody is waking up this morning feeling better off? No.

Um, so we thought we'd go through the sort of main sections of personal and whatever, and maybe start with the personal.

Anything.

Take your interest in the personal section.

I assume you have no savings.

Um, well, I think I think the starting point is just, you know, the continuum freezing of the, um, the thresholds until twenty thirty one.

I'll try and remember when it was.

Was it Rishi who started the freezing.

It must be getting on for nine or ten years ago.

It's interesting because Gordon Brown had a lot of fiscal drag, which kind of muls up pictures of Gordon Brown in a dress, which I think is a pretty uncomfortable sort of.

But he I think he was quite keen on it.

Then he stopped for a while.

Yeah.

Um, I think what people forget is what Rishi did in twenty one was on the back of, you know, a once in a hundred year event.

Yeah.

And four hundred billion of unfunded cost.

Yeah.

So we're suffering the consequences of that a little bit.

But, you know, two P in the pound would have been obvious to the layperson.

Mhm.

Yep.

And two p in the pound means you're really not getting re-elected I suspect.

So we do it in a different way.

But it has the same effect ultimately.

And it's quite interesting how it draws into because you're going to have some unhappy pensioners.

Oh absolutely.

Yeah.

And there wasn't there a strange mention of something to do with pensioners and state pension and little bits won't be taxed or something floating around.

It wasn't entirely clear what they meant, but they're obviously trying to look at some sort of easement for.

Yeah.

You know, maybe a pensioner who's really on basic state pension and that's it.

Yeah.

Not to bring them into tax, but this has been floated before having a different personal allowance for old people.

Yes, absolutely.

Um, which is a well-known simplification measure, I think, to have two personal, two personal allowances.

But, um, we have gone down by the let's do the complicated things though.

People don't really understand, I suspect.

But, um, yeah, yeah, that's a pretty significant thing over time, isn't it? More and more taxation certainly is.

I did hear a government minister say it only affects you if you get a pay rise, so I'm looking forward to no pay rises for the next seven years because that will help, I'm sure you know, but it's.

Yeah, well, kind of true.

But anyway, what about savings income.

You've not got any you've not got any property income, have you.

I haven't got any property income.

No, I mean no, the property income.

That was an interesting wasn't it.

From twenty seven twenty eight.

Yeah.

Basically extra two percent isn't it.

Um and adding on for basic higher and additional rate taxpayers.

Yeah.

The tax on saving income, that's um, that's from twenty twenty seven isn't it.

That's right.

Yeah.

That's coming in twenty seven.

So which is a bit odd because you'd have thought they'd have done it as far away as a general election can.

They can.

But they seem to want to cut, cut, cut their own throats and shoot themselves in the feet at the same time because, you know, let's leave it till really close to the next election and really upset people.

But yeah, property income going up.

Uh, savings income similarly savings income.

Yeah.

You try and save money.

Well, we'll have a bit more.

Thank you very much.

Certainly seems isn't it.

Yeah.

And and rather strange dividends but not the same starting point.

No.

That's it.

And that's from twenty six isn't it.

The change, the changes on the dividend income for an extra two percent.

Ordinary and upper rates.

That's applicable isn't it.

Yeah.

But not additional rate for some reason that nobody now and it's interesting again because I do remember in in this series of leaks, I think this was May time when Angela Rayner hadn't bought a second property at that stage, and I seem to remember there was a leaked memo, uh, to the Telegraph, I think it was, and I assume it was Angela Rayner that leaked it, presumably because it was a memo by her saying, you know, tax dividends more because only rich people have dividends and so on.

And you fast forward all those months.

Some of this stuff has actually come to fruition.

Yeah.

They haven't done something self-evident of to pee in the pan.

But I mean, you look at incorporation for our clients, you know, small salary and dividends, the way to go for twenty years and suddenly, yeah, you know, in a very crude sense, probably better to be self-employed, you know, if you want to take your money and run.

Yeah.

You know, it changes the balance sheet again for some people just certainly does.

But, uh, yeah.

So some very interesting mainstream things.

Um.

The Chancellor did make some sort of comment about no pension changes.

Oh, yes.

No changes there.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not going to whack your tax free lump sum.

Having suggested for the last four months I might do well.

Phew.

Thanks.

Um, but interestingly, I suppose the flip side of that salary sacrifice, it's all well and good saying.

Yeah, well, you know, not affecting you personally, which would have affected, um, let's face it, doctors, MPs and variety of other people.

So, um, but actually salary sacrifice, another massive cost to.

Yeah, certainly big employers.

It is.

And the interesting thing about that it's not it's, it's not for another four years is April two thousand and twenty nine that that one's um, well, I do wonder, you know, for the big employers, you look at the business that employs us, you know, I don't know what the cost of the increased NI are, but around our group would be massive.

You'd be talking hundreds of thousands of quid.

Yeah.

Um, if you were then going to say on top of that, we're going to increase minimum wage, you know, significantly again, and we're going to whack you with more NI in year two.

It's almost like, you know, they said, okay, we'll have a breath.

Let businesses just try and recover briefly over, you know, and then we'll do it.

Do something again to the big ones again.

It certainly seems, isn't it? But I find the two grand limit interesting, because you know that that that if that's a five percent contribution.

Yeah, that's about forty thousand pounds earnings that you're talking about.

That's not super rich people.

It's not.

Absolutely.

That's large numbers of employees in large you know look at Rolls Royce or somebody like you know some that's again that's tens, hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Again it is.

Yeah.

For the individual as well.

Mhm.

But then presumably the message is here.

If you earn forty grand you're not a working person I assume.

So you know we've not breached our, you know not breached our statement.

But it's, it's a very not a growth plan is it.

It doesn't it doesn't seem to be.

No it doesn't seem to.

And I hope you've got no money in ISAs.

Well that's an interesting one on the ice as well, isn't it? Um, you know, this was all rumoured last year as well, wasn't she didn't do anything.

So all the limits again frozen until twenty thirty one.

Um, but of course the main change being twenty from twenty seven annual Isa cash limit twelve thousand pounds.

Unless you're over the age of sixty five.

Yeah, because we don't want to upset pensioners because we're still trying to retain their vote.

Presumably.

You know what? What it is just bamboozling, isn't it? You know, on one hand you say bring more people into tax including pensioners.

Yeah.

And tax more pensioners on their savings income.

But then, uh, we'll, we won't you know, we won't prejudice them with this.

We've got nothing left to save, you know, what's, what are you talking.

But it's a really odd and actually contradictory to exactly what she said last year, which was the limits will stay the same till twenty thirty.

And now it's.

Oh, I've changed my mind on the cash.

Yeah, but not retrospect.

I couldn't honestly see.

I didn't think they'd be brave enough to go for it retrospectively.

No.

You know, and it's not going to free up money that's already in ISAs.

Because if you've already got a cash Isa, you know that's what you like as opposed to shares.

You're not going to suddenly take it out and put it in the stock market.

No.

Absolutely.

And it's interesting, you know, for me, I don't know about you stocks and shares.

I'm of an age where it's not a long term investment anymore.

It's getting a shorter investment.

And actually I don't want the volatility.

This is exactly the same thing.

So if I got twenty grand spare I think I'd put my twelve in my cash and I'll pay tax on my eight you know on the savings income or put it in my wife's name who pays no tax.

You know, there's always a different option.

But it's a I'm not quite sure what message you're trying to convey to people here.

You're trying to say save or don't save or.

Yeah.

You know, it's very odd.

It is odd.

I think, um, I think Martin, I think she's on Martin Luther's show tonight, so she.

She'll get a bit of a grilling from Martin.

She'll be tuning in.

I'm definitely going to be tuning into that later.

I wouldn't like to go up against Martin.

No, no, he's quite fast on his feet.

He's very fast on his feet.

Yeah, I might be tuning in probably about eight o'clock, eight o'clock on ITV.

There you go.

And then I'm a celebrity.

Put her in the jungle.

Tariq, Tariq.

Fish eyes.

I could have gone for something worse, but never mind.

So anyway, bit of employment, I think.

Employment.

We've.

We've touched upon the salary sacrifice, haven't we? So yeah, we have on there.

I know the one me and you talked about yesterday was this removal of the tax relief on Non-reimbursed homeworking.

Absolute disgrace for homeworkers.

Um, and it's interesting because you've seen more compliance on the revenue saying we're going to start raising enquiries.

So they're obviously being bombarded with, you know, some dubious claims.

Yeah, I saw the press release that said there'd been a lot of incorrect claims that have been made on this.

It does highlight the as an employer, why would you not be reimbursing.

Yeah.

Sorry reimbursing.

But you know paying straight reimbursing your six pound in cash.

And I don't mean on top of but instead of some of your salary increase, you know that's not a salary sacrifice.

That's just so it highlights.

But it'd be quite interesting because that'll be in a lot of people's coding.

So one would imagine was that a next year change.

Was that a twenty six change.

It wasn't it.

It was.

Yeah.

April twenty eight, twenty twenty six.

That ones.

So I guess there'll be a big project on pay as you earn codes going into next year of trying to get it out.

Um, yeah.

I'm sure the revenue will be hugely successful in amending ten million pay as you earn codes, but some more admin to keep track of minimum wage.

We did touch upon, didn't we? We should mention it.

We did.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

You know we increases again.

Yeah.

That's from April next year.

Yeah.

First April.

Yeah.

Depend and it's it's strange because in the manifesto the government had made this comment that they wanted to get rid of.

I think they called them discriminatory wage differentials.

Yes.

Yeah.

Now in my mind, I'm not sure sixteen to seventeen personally is discrimination because you're not an adult.

So can you say it should be the same as eighteen apprentices? I can kind of understand, yes.

You know why? If you're a twenty five year old apprentice, are you getting eight quid an hour? Mhm.

Yes.

Don't know.

Um but the government did try yesterday to close that gap between eighteen and twenty ones.

Yes.

By I think it was eight percent.

Was it as opposed to something like that.

I think it was which the moral of that is don't employ an eighteen year old.

Get a seventeen year old.

Clearly you know.

So I'm not sure quite what this ultimately does for youth employment or unemployment.

Um, mass redundancies for anybody who is age eighteen.

Um, but, you know, that's part of it.

But the implication then becomes business again, doesn't it? You look at businesses where this has had a real impact, you know, hospitality and the like where they've been tens of thousands of jobs shed.

Yeah.

Again this combination and it's quite interesting for me if you're on full time minimum wage, you know, twelve quid an hour at thirty five, you know, thirty five hours a week, you're on twenty four thousand quid.

And once upon a time, minimum wage wasn't deniable.

Of course, it probably wasn't taxable, but it's gone up so much relative to other things it has that actually.

Now your employer's costs are.

So I don't see job market getting any easier in the near future.

Absolutely.

Personally.

But absolutely not.

Um there you go.

So yeah, some bits and pieces.

I mean, just looking through the other things.

Um, I don't think there were any really sort of mainstream issues.

We've talked about salary sacrifice.

Yeah.

Um, some bits and pieces around umbrella structures and agencies and stuff, but we already kind of knew about that.

So, yeah, the contrived car ownership scheme that's been put back yet again, isn't it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's gone back a long twenty thirty two or twenty thirty two.

That's because all MPs have cars through, you know they're on four or five year deals so they've got to let those expire.

But um yeah, it seems having said they were going to do it quite quickly, suddenly it's gone back a long, long way.

So quite what the reality is of that.

Who knows.

But who knows on that one? No.

Um.

Business? Yeah, business.

Um, no changes to seat rates, obviously on that.

No, no.

And the, you know, the commitment.

Still saying it won't change in this Parliament.

I think they're still trying to say, yeah.

Um, capital that very odd sort of capital allowances change.

So.

Yes.

Yeah.

The Wdas are going down, aren't they? Yeah.

So writing down allowance generally for main rate plant.

Yeah.

Down from next year to fourteen percent.

Yeah.

Now for smaller businesses AA is probably enough for you covering it.

And but you know for the bigger businesses um, um, but that seems to have been done to fund a new first year allowance.

Yes.

And that's and that's for all businesses isn't it.

Yeah.

So not a so and this is a first year allowance not a not a full expensing.

Yeah it's a first year allowance not an annual investment allowance.

Yeah.

Uh it appears to be because it's interesting yesterday what we were saying a lot of the press releases were really short on any sort of proper detail.

Leaving aside the fact we still don't know what half the allowances are because that document's gone missing as well.

But, you know, so very odd sort of most probably the most chaotic process we've been in over our well, this is my sixteenth budget since I came back and I can't remember one quite like it.

No, you've obviously been here longer than me, Mark.

Uh, and it feels like it.

Um, but yeah, I can't remember the chaos for different reasons.

Um, but we seem to have a first year allowance on new stuff, so.

Yeah, different to air.

Yeah, for all businesses.

All businesses.

Uh, rather than just the full expensing stuff.

But then not cars.

Not your second hand assets.

Yeah.

It it appears turning on this is more to do with businesses who lease equipment.

Yes.

Who have been prohibited historically from first year allowances.

That's right.

Yeah.

And there were some tweaking of leasing within full expensing about stuff in buildings.

But fundamentally if you buy and lease it out you can't claim first year allowances.

And this seems to be saying what I mean I'm struggling to think who else this would apply to because smaller business air doesn't have that restriction anyway.

Big business.

Well they got their full expensing.

So what.

So it seems to be a rather strange sort of intermediate rate for leasing of assets.

It does.

Didn't they hint that they were looking at this last year? They did say when economic conditions allow or something.

I think I think the problem is it's so expensive.

You know you look at full expensing for big corporates.

It's it's ten eleven twelve billion cost a year.

Yeah.

So it seems to be a bit of a sop to those businesses without going the whole hog of one hundred percent.

But the flip side is you know only forty percent writing down allowance for everybody.

So um.

Swings and roundabouts a little bit possibly, but seems to be, doesn't it? But capital allowances not getting any any simpler.

No, no.

Notice with that one hundred percent first year allowance for you zero emission cars.

Except that extended again, isn't it? But only by a year.

Again.

Yeah, yeah.

And this strange messaging on electric vehicles.

Are you trying to promote them? Yeah.

And if you are, why not say to businesses.

Right.

Got, you know, got it for the next five years.

Exactly.

But it's this one year rolling.

Yeah.

Which probably doesn't help the marketplace either.

You know.

Probably not because, you know, you.

But then on the flip side, Um, you benefit in kind going up, and you keep going up.

I'd say, you know, you want to save the world, but pay more tax and then pay more tax for the privilege of driving some unhappy colleagues.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Now, as a diesel driver, you and I.

Well, you're a petrol diesel.

I think this is fantastic because it doesn't affect me.

It doesn't affect me.

No, but poor old electric drivers are going to be paying some sort of road pricing in the future.

Yeah, because they don't pay fuel duty.

Yeah.

I think I saw an advert.

Was it an average of twenty pounds a month, the cost or something like that? I think I remember reading something along those lines, but the last I read, based on your own estimate, yes.

When you renew your well, there might be a bit of fibbing going on.

So I suspect that will be what? Why? It's just not a flat fee.

Yeah, it seems a little bit, you know, we're not.

You either do road pricing for everyone.

I would have thought.

You don't.

And you've got million cameras or you haven't.

This seems neither one nor a bit like MTD, you know, neither one nor the other.

Complete waste of everyone.

But anyway, don't get us started.

No, no MTD.

Dear me.

Um, I mean, to be fair to the government, you know, I don't see much of a growth plan, if I'm honest.

That's my personal.

You know, um, there were some changes to some of the historic, um, yes, start up stroke investment schemes, I suppose, etc.

Yeah.

Um, so a change in some of the limits.

Yeah.

So bigger companies I think, for want of a better expression.

So changing the thresholds of gross assets and so on.

Yeah.

Some of those limits are doubled haven't they.

Yeah yeah yeah.

But interestingly then again a little bit of swings and roundabouts reducing the income tax relief on VCT.

Oh that's right down to twenty percent.

Yeah.

So and again the these again coming through from next year.

That's right.

So coming through fairly quickly uh again EMI being expanded in terms of businesses that can qualify.

But I have to say, um, I've not spoken to many clients over recent years where they have any great interest in a share option.

options.

Not not not in the, um.

Not not lots.

I'm not saying nobody, but no, I'm not.

I can't see many businesses.

I don't see many businesses actually bringing in is a succession plan.

Yeah.

That sort of issue, you know.

Um, so again, quite to me, you know, more tinkering rather than a major change, which is make people going to go out there and say, right, I will invest in a UK risky business, you know, it's tweaks as opposed to something really fundamental.

Probably.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

But yeah, if you're interested in that, maybe have a, have a little bit of a look.

Um, yeah.

Unless we got capital taxes.

Yeah.

Um, not a vast amount of CGT changes, but one quite specific but interesting if you do it sort of thing.

Yeah.

Uh, the employee ownership trust.

Yes.

Yeah.

Um, reduction of the relief, isn't it? Yeah.

I mean, again, I know some businesses, some advisors really like these.

Use them a lot, you know.

Very nice for the vendor who gets no capital gain.

I'm not entirely sure.

With the structure you're left with, you know, a business run by its employees via some sort of trust arrangement is a.

Yeah, you know, but it's been very preferential.

If you want to offload your shares to your staff, essentially, you know, uh, what's essentially being said here is it'll only be fifty percent relief, not one hundred, and you won't be able to claim back or anything else on the balance.

No.

And that that gain is a holdover.

Yes.

Yeah.

Um, so that exemption in inverted commas becomes a holdover to the so, you know, get passed on to the trust anyway and we'll come back in some form in, in the future.

Yeah.

So it's quite a big change to that particular relief.

Um, yeah.

But then the good old incorporation of a business.

Well that's interesting.

You were mentioning this yesterday.

We're currently doing a run of OMB calls, isn't we, Sam? For the last few weeks in corporation relief, it's an automatic relief.

Remember saying that, you know, literally a couple of days a go and then that's changed, isn't it? Effective from April next year.

Again, you're gonna have to.

Well, yeah, sorry, I interrupted.

You're going to have to claim it.

You're going to have to claim it.

Yeah.

I'll be interested to see the compliance spin off of that.

You know, if you're claiming it on the return that allows the revenue, then to say, ah, right.

Okay.

Then, you know, do you qualify.

Yes.

So albeit probably twenty years too late.

It'll be quite interesting to see.

Do you see court cases down the line which are saying no, no, no, no.

Three properties are not a business, that sort of thing.

It will be um, it will be I, we know we got the stuff on pensions coming.

Oh yeah.

No.

Yeah.

A little tweak to the mechanics of actually paying the charge being suggested, but fundamentally, yeah, it seems to be going ahead from twenty seven.

Yeah.

So my, my mum and dad have you know, their life expectancy has now gone down to March twenty seven.

Um, they'll be coming on a long drive.

Um, but but you know, that appears to be going ahead as it stands certainly seems then the good old Apr and BPR.

I see, you know quite a lot of arrests of farmers outside Parliament yesterday.

Oh, yes.

Um, the government making a bit of a concession in those little sweetener there.

Isn't there a little sweetener? Um, the the one million limit? Yeah.

As it originally was suggested, would not be transferable between married couples.

Unlike.

That's right.

The main other.

Whatever you want to call them.

Exemptions.

Uh, nil rate bands.

Now it seems to be suggesting it will be.

Yes.

Uh, which is really good.

Giving you three months notice.

Yes.

You know, again, you're not getting to the heart of the problem.

No.

Um, no.

And I think what you do see in this budget, I find it, you know, trying to leave aside whether I agree or disagree with some of this stuff, the politics of it.

You have now gone from a sort of middle of the road budget, trying to keep everyone happy to actually a bit more of a political okay.

If you save money, we're not keen on you.

If you've got a pension, we're not keen on you.

If you're a farmer, we're not keen.

But, you know, clear political stuff.

Yeah.

Give somebody on the other side of the equation the chance the next election say, well, you know, we'll change this, we'll change this, we'll change this.

So yes, I think as you you know, we're already eighteen months into this government whether it's going to last another three and a half years.

But some of this stuff may have a fairly limited shelf life.

May well do so.

I think the moral is don't die till twenty nine would seem to be the moral.

Keep yourself going.

Yeah, because, you know, you can see other political parties saying, well, we just don't.

Yeah.

And these are not material sums of money.

I think this is the other thing.

This is not twenty billion quid of employers ni this is a billion quid here, a billion quid there.

So you could change it quite easily if you chose to change it.

Absolutely.

And replace it with some other tax.

Nobody understands.

So anyway so yeah not massive changes.

Your main principles are going ahead I think is the basic certainly is.

The only other one I thought was of interesting that nil rate band three twenty five thousand since two thousand and nine.

Yeah going to be the same to fifth April twenty thirty one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's no doubt IHT is raising more and more.

Yeah.

But you know, more and more compliance as well.

You know, interestingly, on one of the OMB courses, guy was saying I thought he was talking about excessive cash for CGT purposes, and he was actually talking about BPR.

And they have a client who has died.

The returns gone in.

Um, and they've been picked up on you've got too much cash in those shares value, right.

I haven't seen one of those inquiries for twenty five years.

I can't remember us having to get technical queries on that.

No, but you know, there is more compliance coming.

You can feel it.

And one of the big I think if you look at, um, revenue announcements yesterday, one that struck me was they are now being asked to raise ten billion pounds per annum more through compliance.

Well, a year ago it was six million.

Yeah.

Then in the spring statement it was seven billion and now it's ten billion per annum.

Wow.

So you're going to see more.

Oh, yeah.

Overlain by the two big other projects, digital by default, which is we're never going to answer your phone call anymore.

You know, we'll just try and route you somewhere.

Um, but also, uh, tax debt strategy.

Yeah.

You know, you owe us money.

We want it.

And we will pursue you to the ends of the earth sort of thing, which is, you know, part and parcel of what the revenue should do.

I suppose if you owe the money, you should pay it.

Yeah.

But it clearly a changing.

Yeah.

You know, talk about recovering more.

Wasn't you your our MTD expert, aren't you for want of a better.

Yeah.

But, you know, there was a mention yesterday about something to do with self-assessment taxpayers somehow paying more regularly.

That's right.

Pay as you would if you're.

If you're whatever that means.

Yeah.

No, it's in the detail.

We've discussed this a lot, haven't we? MTD is nothing to do with paying tax.

No.

If you want to collect self-employed tax by direct debit in twelve instalments.

I can't get very excited about that.

No.

You know.

So just do that then.

Yeah.

So but it's interesting, the stuff that's floating around in terms of get money more quickly, don't ride it off.

You know, there's big policies overlapping all this stuff.

But anyway, I seem to be on a bit of a recruitment drive for extra debt collectors and things.

Yeah.

Five thousand.

Five thousand highly trained operators? Yes.

Some of whom will know what the initials VAT mean.

Um, you know, but it's all right.

Recruiting.

But the training to make them to make them effective is not a six month exercise or a one year exercise or whatever, you know? It's a long term exercise, so.

Yeah.

Um, I'm thinking of going back five years.

Commission only offered my services.

Just, you never know.

Just for the pension.

There you go.

Thirty percent employer contribution.

Yeah.

Having a chat about that.

That's exactly right.

When we're on the road, I should have stayed anyway.

Uh.

Other matters.

So you'll.

The other matters.

We've talked a little bit about enforcement collection.

Yeah.

No changes to the VAT.

Were they just.

Well, not as far as we know.

Not many things floating around.

I just wanted to ask, do you live in a mansion? No.

This won't affect me.

Won't affect.

You know, I quite like a lot of these because I don't have an electric car.

I don't have a mansion.

I've got no savings, you know, so I'm quids in this budget.

But, um, I think if you're old enough.

Yeah.

This goes back to rates.

Yes.

Uh, which became council tax bands ultimately.

Yeah.

But with a little blip in the middle called poll tax.

Remember that when essentially we were trying to revalue the rates and daren't do that.

So went for a different option of pay per head.

Yeah.

And you had rights on the streets.

We certainly did.

And I think in a roundabout way you see they're not prepared to risk a full rerating.

Yeah.

Which let's face it, there probably should be but would lead to basically everybody paying more.

They're not prepared to upset everybody.

So we'll just upset people with more again? Absolutely.

Um, but it'd be quite interesting.

You know, if you live in a two million pound house.

It's interesting because you are historically Leicester based.

Yeah.

Prices in Leicester would be more than where I live in Derby.

Right.

Yeah.

Um, if you go down south, the prices will be double or plus, you know.

So very geographic.

Very.

And just because you live in a big house doesn't mean you're wealthy.

No no, no.

You've got your ninety four year old pensioner who's sitting there on basic state pension with a house they've lived in for seventy years.

How that was all part of the issue with poll tax.

Yeah.

So it'd be quite interesting to see the reality as it goes forward.

Yeah.

Um, they talk about that from twenty eight from memory, aren't they? Yeah.

To be collected as a surcharge essentially with council.

With council tax.

Yeah.

I do remember going to prison not paying the poll tax saying well, I'm not paying it.

What are you going to do? Yeah.

You know, so it'd be interesting to see.

Do people just suck it up? Yeah.

Interesting.

Anyway, so, um.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we've seen seen some changes.

The other thing I would just mention we talked about in the past, we do not, as we sit here on the morning after the budget, have any confirmation really of any of the figures for next year because the document which does that has gone lost.

Yeah.

We can only assume the person in the revenue is supposed to push the button.

He's on long term leave or sick.

One of the two, you know, goodness knows what is going on with the process.

But anyway, when things are going against you, they're going against you, aren't.

They? Certainly seem to be.

The Chancellor has, uh, I'm taking a straw poll.

There will not be another autumn budget with Miss Reeves in power.

And that's my.

I just don't see how how she stretches it another year.

But we will see.

We will see.

And don't forget to tune into Martin Lewis tonight.

Yeah.

Tune into there's a plug from Norman.

Got his commission in five quid in the post.

So, uh, but anyway, uh, thanks for joining us.

Uh, hopefully it's given you a bit of a round up of what went on yesterday.

So, uh.

Yeah.

Goodbye from me.

Goodbye from me.

Goodbye.

Yeah.

Cheers.

Yeah.

And, uh.

Yeah.

We'll see you again soon.