Speaking at our event, Mary Starks of Flint highlights the centrality of moderning our power and water infrastructure for our net zero transition. Regulators will play a key role in driving these changes (and will inevitably be unpopular for doing it!)

"It's great news that workers might be able to direct their pension contributions to more expensive providers" says a more expensive pension provider PensionBee UK

Fantastic CaSE annual lecture with Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Prof Dame Angela McLean. Topics included using science to improve national resilience, building a more scientific civil service and delivering the science & tech framework. Sarah Main

Inflation: big forecast news - OBR have revised UP their inflation forecast a lot. This will mean even stronger increase in tax revenues (and deeper public investment cuts)

Spending headline: sticking to tight spending plans post-election. This will mean totally implausible cuts to unprotected departments and huge cuts to public investment (held flat in cash terms in face of much higher inflation)

🚨 Today's Autumn Statement was a wasted opportunity to set out a path to a fairer economy. No amount of rhetoric will hide the fact the UK is failing to deliver the energy infrastructure and innovation we need to meet our net zero targets and create new jobs.

Central story of the #Autumnstatement is that a (nominal) £21bn/yr tax cut has been funded from (real) £19bn/yr cut in public services This isn't sustainable and whoever wins the election will have to raise those taxes again - and then some - just to keep the wheels on

The key fact underlying the OBR's upgrade to tax receipts: nominal GDP MUCH higher. Next key fact: departmental spending is barely higher In effect, the govt is financially benefiting from a real terms cut to departmental spending, and is using £20bn for tax cuts. That's it.

Union chief warns of Tesla threat to Sweden’s model - on.ft.com/410Laxa via Financial Times

NEW: We have written to the Environment Secretary following Capita's announcement that it plans to sell it's 75% stake in Fera Science Ltd. This causes uncertainty for our members which is compounded by Capita's ongoing attempt to remove trade union recognition at Fera.

"The decline in worker bargaining power, the result of decades of de-unionisation along with increased market power of employers, costs the average worker around £100 a week in lost wages." Mike Clancy of Prospect Union on how unions can drive growth: labourlist.org/2023/12/labour…

🧵 As we approach Wednesday’s Budget, much of the debate is about tax cuts. But the real story is that the government has planned huge cuts to public spending to kick in after the election.

Given the strains in the NHS, social care, schools, defence, prisons and numerous other services, these plans are deeply irresponsible. The government is putting off dealing with problems that are doing increasing damage to our economy and society.

The public agrees. Just 16% of voters – and only 17% of Conservative voters – support tax cuts if it means cutting public services.

Behind these challenges lie years of low economic growth, with stagnating wages and slow job creation. This has led to low tax revenues to spend on public services.

The two key determinants of growth are employment levels and worker productivity. Worker productivity has been stagnating since the financial crisis, and the number of people in work has not returned to pre-Covid trends.

Improving our prospects means keeping people in work and improving their productivity. And that will require a proper industrial strategy: We need to address historically low levels of business investment in R&D, infrastructure, and training

We need better jobs, with flexibility for those who need it, action on stress and discrimination, and strong worker voice We need to protect and invest in vital public services that support businesses and strengthen our economy as well as improving everyone’s quality of life

Depressing for 3 reasons. - Public sector investment is low in UK; - It is due to be cut sharply (whoever wins the election); - levels are completely unstable, up and down, making planning hard, and one reason why infrastructure projects more expensive in UK than elsewhere.

‘Progressives always want more, but the New Deal will help tame capitalism’ – Mike Clancy via LabourList labourlist.org/2024/04/labour…