Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confronted the fiscal “storm” battering Britain on Thursday, announcing £55bn of tax rises and spending cuts intended to restore the country’s reputation and shore up its frail balance sheet (The Financial Times £).
UK households are set to suffer a 7.1% fall in living standards over the next two years, the largest decline in six decades, according to a new forecast from the Office of Budget Responsibility (The Financial Times £).
The UK is already in a recession that will wipe out eight years of growth in living standards, the economy’s official forecaster has warned (The Times £).
Thousands of shops, pubs and restaurants are in line for £14bn in relief aimed at countering next year’s rise in business rates, but the government stopped short of more fundamental reform of the tax (The Times £).
The UK’s warehouse sector has criticised a business rates tax rise targeted at online retailers such as Amazon as the chancellor used the levy to “soften the blow” for high street shops (The Guardian).
Annual allowances for dividends and capital gains tax will be halved twice in the space of two years in a blow to investors and business owners (The Times £).
Businesses face a £32bn tax bombshell next April as Jeremy Hunt battles to balance the books (The Mail).
Small businesses were left disappointed by Hunt’s Autumn Statement (The Financial Times £). Three company owners in the food, software and fishing industries describe the challenges they face.
Lidl is plotting to overtake Morrisons as the UK’s fifth biggest grocer, with an extra 770,000 shoppers a week flocking through its doors (The Mail).
People are switching from traditional supermarket chains to Lidl as they struggle with the cost of living, the discount chain has claimed (The Times £).
Lidl has said it took £58m in additional sales from traditional supermarkets in the past month, as shoppers look for ways to save money, after quadrupling profits in a bounce back from Covid disruption (The Guardian).
More than 70,000 shoppers have queued online and hundreds lined up outside UK stores to get their hands on Aldi’s toys and merchandise based around its Kevin the Carrot adverts (The Guardian).
More than 700 workers at a food manufacturing facility that supplies Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Marks and Spencer will strike from late November until the new year in a row over pay (The Guardian).
Egg shortages and rationing in the UK are expected to last beyond Christmas, an industry body has warned, as the poultry industry grapples with spiralling costs and its worst ever bout of bird flu (The Guardian).
Shoppers are looking for greater value for money in their purchases, according to Finsbury Food Group (The Times £).
Pub group Fuller’s has said it expects a busy Christmas period and a boost from the World Cup but warns of challenges to the business from soaring energy costs, inflation, and rising interest rates (The Financial Times £).
Sales at Fuller, Smith & Turner have returned to pre-pandemic levels in recent weeks with commuters and overseas visitors back in central London (The Times £).
Alibaba reported sluggish growth in the third quarter as the ecommerce giant continues to feel the impact of China’s zero-Covid lockdowns, which have hammered economic growth and consumer spending in the country (The Financial Times £).
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