The Budget is cancelled for now!
10 October 2020Management of a pandemic within a nation is nigh on impossible, and untested in modern times. Its effects are significant, indeed deadly in some cases, and coping with the situation is exposing national strengths and weaknesses across the globe.
Handling the fiscal position of a nation is also difficult to manage. Our new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak MP, delivered his first Budget on 11 March 2020. With the spread of COVID-19 accelerating at that time, his words were largely out of step within ten days of his announcements. Following the March Budget, there have been additional economic announcements to help the UK economy forward, noting that the UK debt 'hill' that once existed is now a very large mountain. Borrowing has increased to £2.024 trillion, with public sector debt rising by more than 100% in August 2020, according to the Office for National Statistics. More can be found here:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance
Sensibly, the UK Budget that was due to be delivered towards the end of October 2020 has been cancelled. This is because it is difficult to implement economic measures and changes when the situation is so fluid. It imports the risk that any changes made will be out of date again within a short space of time, particularly if there were to be a further national lockdown (as a collective area or alternatively as single geographical areas grouped together, such as Wales is sadly largely experiencing at the time of writing (end September 2020)).
This does not mean that the Chancellor and his team are not working on the finances of the UK every day, making adjustments where they can to be prudent and effective.
The same principle applies to personal financial planning for us all. For some, big changes may not be the best plan at this time as we all peer into the unknown but keeping up to date with your current financial position is important, reviewing regularly and making prudent changes where possible.
This might be from simply checking your bank statement, to using up your tax allowances in this tax year as we are only about half way through, to making sure your energy account is in credit for the cold, dark winter nights ahead. Invariably it's a matter of keeping on top of your financial planning and the income and outgoings.
If you would like advice on your financial, investment and pension planning further, then please do contact us at our Guildford office.
No individual advice is provided during the course of this blog.
Keith Churchouse FPFS
Director
Chartered Financial Planner
Chapters Financial Limited
