Rachel Reeves has been talking about ‘reforming’ cash ISAs for some time to “encourage investment” in the London Stock Exchange, which could include slashing the allowance from £20,000 down to £4,000. City executives have been pressuring hard to scrap cash ISAs completely and move savers’ cash into stocks and shares ISAs instead. City minister Emma Reynolds last month bemoaned “Why have we got hundreds of billions of pounds in cash ISAs?” Reeves said at the Treasury Committee last week – on ‘Liberation Day’ – that cash ISA reforms were on the way…
The Spring Statement was meant to be D-Day for the changes, but the plans were shelved, instead expected to be announced in the Autumn budget. Pensioners will be breathing a sigh of relief at the timing, considering the FTSE 100 tumbled by 11%, falling from 8,642 to 7,702 in the three days after Trump’s tariffs announcement. The fallout is still ongoing…
Guido’s crunched some numbers. Currently, cash ISAs – not tied up in the FTSE or LSE – hold a chunky £285 billion. Had all those cash ISAs been forcibly moved into stocks and shares ISA (which hold £420 billion), they’d have lost a staggering £31.46 billion. Well above Labour’s invented “£22 billion black hole.” Just fortunate timing that Trump made his tariff announcement before Reeves had made any changes…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”