We await a formal announcement on the date of a fiscal event planned for next week. Although this was initially expected to take place on Wednesday 21 September, it now looks more likely that it may take place on Thursday 22 September or even Friday 23 September (although that would necessitate a delay to the planned rising of the Commons for conference recess).
Meanwhile, further changes have been made to the Treasury ministerial team. Andrew Griffith MP is appointed as financial secretary to the Treasury (FST) (replacing Lucy Frazer MP) and City minister (replacing John Glen MP). Griffith, a chartered accountant, was previously parliamentary under secretary of state for the Department for International Trade for three months. He is the Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs. The FST responsibilities include: financial services taxation, including bank levy, bank corp. tax surcharge, IPT; personal savings tax and pensions tax policy; and investment tax reliefs, including EIS, SEIS, and VCTs.
Felicity Buchan MP is appointed exchequer secretary to the Treasury (replacing Alan Mak MP). Buchan is the Conservative MP for Kensington. Her new responsibilities include: childcare policy, including tax free childcare; environment taxes, including plastics taxation (excluding carbon taxes, such as UK emissions trading scheme, climate change levy and carbon price support); transport taxation including vehicle taxes and future strategy and air passenger duty; excise duties (alcohol, tobacco and gambling), including excise fraud and law enforcement; soft drink industry levy; gift aid; and supporting tax legislation in Parliament.
Treasury permanent secretary Sir Tom Scholar has been dismissed as part of a pledge by Prime Minister Truss to change the ‘Treasury orthodoxy’. Scholar’s two most recent predecessors, Gus O’Donnell and Nick Macpherson, were among those criticising the dismissal. ‘Tom Scholar is the best civil servant of his generation. Sacking him makes no sense,’ Lord Macpherson tweeted.
Jill Gutter, senior research fellow at UK in a Changing Europe, noted that ‘Treasury permanent secretaries have had a rough time when administrations change before’ but said that ‘Kwarteng and Truss’s decision looks like an attack on the impartiality of the civil service, applying a new ideological compatibility test to appointments. They have probably alienated many staff in the Treasury who looked up to Scholar. They have lost an official with an unrivalled track record of managing the economic fallout of crises – in the middle of a major economic crisis’.
However, former minister Lord Agnew argued in The Times (13 September) that the prime minister was right to sack Scholar. ‘Having worked in his department for nearly two years, I saw at first hand the malign influence of the Treasury orthodoxy at play,’ he wrote.
The cabinet secretary has now begun the search for his replacement.
We await a formal announcement on the date of a fiscal event planned for next week. Although this was initially expected to take place on Wednesday 21 September, it now looks more likely that it may take place on Thursday 22 September or even Friday 23 September (although that would necessitate a delay to the planned rising of the Commons for conference recess).
Meanwhile, further changes have been made to the Treasury ministerial team. Andrew Griffith MP is appointed as financial secretary to the Treasury (FST) (replacing Lucy Frazer MP) and City minister (replacing John Glen MP). Griffith, a chartered accountant, was previously parliamentary under secretary of state for the Department for International Trade for three months. He is the Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs. The FST responsibilities include: financial services taxation, including bank levy, bank corp. tax surcharge, IPT; personal savings tax and pensions tax policy; and investment tax reliefs, including EIS, SEIS, and VCTs.
Felicity Buchan MP is appointed exchequer secretary to the Treasury (replacing Alan Mak MP). Buchan is the Conservative MP for Kensington. Her new responsibilities include: childcare policy, including tax free childcare; environment taxes, including plastics taxation (excluding carbon taxes, such as UK emissions trading scheme, climate change levy and carbon price support); transport taxation including vehicle taxes and future strategy and air passenger duty; excise duties (alcohol, tobacco and gambling), including excise fraud and law enforcement; soft drink industry levy; gift aid; and supporting tax legislation in Parliament.
Treasury permanent secretary Sir Tom Scholar has been dismissed as part of a pledge by Prime Minister Truss to change the ‘Treasury orthodoxy’. Scholar’s two most recent predecessors, Gus O’Donnell and Nick Macpherson, were among those criticising the dismissal. ‘Tom Scholar is the best civil servant of his generation. Sacking him makes no sense,’ Lord Macpherson tweeted.
Jill Gutter, senior research fellow at UK in a Changing Europe, noted that ‘Treasury permanent secretaries have had a rough time when administrations change before’ but said that ‘Kwarteng and Truss’s decision looks like an attack on the impartiality of the civil service, applying a new ideological compatibility test to appointments. They have probably alienated many staff in the Treasury who looked up to Scholar. They have lost an official with an unrivalled track record of managing the economic fallout of crises – in the middle of a major economic crisis’.
However, former minister Lord Agnew argued in The Times (13 September) that the prime minister was right to sack Scholar. ‘Having worked in his department for nearly two years, I saw at first hand the malign influence of the Treasury orthodoxy at play,’ he wrote.
The cabinet secretary has now begun the search for his replacement.
