by Jonathan Eida, researcher
Parliament is returning from its holidays, and far from a cause for celebration the warning lights are already flashing. Lined up are bills stuffed with fresh red tape, tax grabs and thinly veiled raids on pensions, the sort of measures that make hiring harder, investment scarcer and retirement less secure. At a moment when growth is fragile and households are stretched, Westminster looks set to tighten the tourniquet: higher costs for employers, new and increased taxes, and schemes that siphon cash from pay packets and nest eggs alike. If this programme proceeds as planned the damage will be felt in both the short and long term.
Here are some of the bills and measures coming down the pipeline:
The Budget
Last year’s Budget was a kick in the shins for taxpayers. This included hikes to employers’ national insurance - a straight-up jobs tax - alongside changes to inheritance tax reliefs that hit farmers and business owners, all wrapped in yet more borrowing and spending. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, promised it was the last raid on finances. “We’re never going to have to do a Budget like this again,” she said. That promise already looks threadbare as she stares into the chasm of a £50 billion black hole in Britain’s balance sheet
Now reports have arisen that the Treasury is eyeing a property wealth tax. Top of the list is an annual levy tied to your home’s value, effectively replacing council tax with something pricier and far less predictable. Ministers are also toying with a “mansion tax” by dragging higher-value home sales into capital gains tax. However it’s spun, it turns bricks and mortar into a cash machine for Whitehall, hiking bills, freezing up the housing market and punishing people for the crime of working hard to own the roof over their heads.
Landlords are in the crosshairs too, with talk of treating so-called “passive” rental income like a salary, meaning national insurance on letting profits or a bespoke rental rate shadowing the income tax bands. That won’t just clobber landlords; it will ripple straight through to renters via higher rents, fewer properties on the market and even more pressure on already stretched household budgets. It also ignores all the work that must go into running these properties. It is a business in and of itself, not just passive income. Just another case of the Treasury dreaming up tax policy without considering the consequences.
To skirt her own fiscal rules, expect more freezes to income tax thresholds, the quiet tax rise known as fiscal drag which politicians often reach for when they don’t want to openly increase taxes by lowering threshold or increasing tax rates. When wages creep up but the bands don’t, millions pay tax for the first time or are hauled into higher rates. Income tax receipts have already jumped from £195.3 billion in 2020–21, the last year before the freeze, to £305.1 billion in 2024–25. By the time the freeze is due to end in 2027–28, revenues are forecast to hit £378.5 billion, over £183 billion more than before the policy began, with around £36 billion of that increase driven by the freezes alone. This is a stealth raid dressed up as prudence and a surefire way to drain what little growth we have today and prosperity tomorrow.
The Employment Rights Bill
The Employment Rights Bill is barrelling toward the statute book, with its third reading - the final chance to tweak it - set for 3rd September, and it’s a horror show for employers still reeling from last year’s National Insurance hike. It scraps zero-hours contracts as we know them, tears up the two-year qualifying period so unfair dismissal becomes a day-one right, and hands unions far greater freedom to organise, represent and negotiate. In reality it results in higher hiring risk, less flexibility, more disputes and higher costs baked into every payroll. If you think this won’t embolden militant action, cast your mind to the London Underground strikes, clearly more union power isn’t what Britain needs. Push this through as drafted and you put a permanent handbrake on a fragile economy and jobs market.
Renters' Rights Bill
This Bill is ready for the consideration of Lord's amendments. It makes provision changing the law about rented homes, including provision abolishing fixed term assured tenancies and assured shorthold tenancies. It imposes obligations on landlords in relation to rented homes and temporary and supported accommodation.
The rental reform plan scraps Section 21 no-fault evictions and makes all assured tenancies periodic in a single switch, giving tenants immediate security. Possession grounds are rewritten to be “fair” to both sides. Landlords can still reclaim properties for legitimate reasons, but tenants get extra safeguards, more time to move if the owner is selling or moving in, and tougher checks on misuse of grounds. To stop “backdoor” evictions, tenants can challenge above-market rent hikes designed to force them out; landlords may still raise rents to market, with an independent tribunal settling disputes. This is an attack on private landlords and will only harm the market for renters as yet more landlords leave the market.
Pension Schemes Bill
The Pension Schemes Bill moves to committee stage on 2nd September. On paper it tackles poor returns, rolls up small pots and builds bigger funds. But buried in the fine print is a de facto industrial policy: a mandate to funnel savings into “UK assets.” Pensions should be run for savers, not for ministers’ pet projects. Fiduciary duty and open market competition drive better outcomes; political quotas and enforced home-bias do not. Hard-wiring geographic targets into investment strategy means less diversification, more risk and the creeping politicisation of your retirement.
Moreover, the Government’s own impact assessment concedes that the bill puts nine million savers at risk by making it easier for companies to dip into retirement schemes. Undermining the funding discipline of final-salary pensions will leave more plans short and unable to meet their promises. That isn’t reform, it’s a raid: a slow, quiet tax on pensions to paper over policy mistakes today at the expense of retirement incomes tomorrow.
The agenda from Whitehall is clear, this is a high-tax, high-spend and fiscally irresponsible government with more assaults on salaries, housing, businesses and pensions coming down the track. Far from unleashing the growth the economy needs, Labour is dragging Britain back to the 1970s.