Autumn Budget 2022 predictions latest: Jeremy Hunt to lower top income tax threshold and keep pensions triple lock

Other ministers have been piling into Downing Street this morning ahead of the budget:

Royal Mail has slumped to a first-half loss and reiterated warnings it will tumble deeper into the red for the full-year after strike action cost it around £100 million.

Owner International Distributions Services (IDS) said Royal Mail fell to a £219 million underlying operating loss in the 26 weeks to September 25 against earnings of £235 million a year ago.

It said three days of strike action in the first half cost Royal Mail around £70 million, while a further five days in October are estimated to have cost it about another £30 million.

Royal Mail expects full-year losses of around £350 million to £450 million, including the direct impact of strike days.

The wider group – which also includes delivery service GLS and Intragroup – reported pre-tax losses of £127 million for the first half, against profits of £315 million a year ago.

Jeremy Hunt has been spotted leaving his home ahead of the autumn budget.

He looked pretty upbeat as he headed out:

Pat McFadden, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said the UK was stuck in a “Conservative doom loop of emergency statements”.

He told Sky News: “I think he should acknowledge their responsibility for what’s happened. I don’t think he should pretend the mini-budget was just a bad dream.”

The Labour MP said the Chancellor may have to “overcompensate” for the mistakes of Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget and would be “desperate to blame global factors” for the UK’s poor economic outlook.

He said Labour’s green prosperity plan would have to be funded “in part by borrowing”, adding that there was a difference between “borrowing for unfunded tax cuts” and for “investments that will have a return for the future of the country”.

UK house prices are widely predicted to take a tumble in the face of spiralling mortgage rates and rising rental prices, but new research shows the fall is likely to be sharper in some areas more than others.

With a deep, long recession on the horizon, the impact of stalled demand for sky-high mortgage approvals, following the disastrous Liz Truss-Kwasi Kwarteng mini-Budget in September, is beginning to put pressure on buyer demand in the property market.

New figures from house seller advice service PropCast shows demand has fallen sharply in 10 UK counties, which could pave the way for a more dramatic slump in house prices in these regions.

Topping its list is the East Midlands county of Rutland, which according to Rightmove had an overall average property price of £371,511 in the past year, compared to the nationwide average of £296,000.

Read the full story from Emily Atkinson here:

People on benefits have described feeling like “the walking dead” as they voiced fears Jeremy Hunt’s expected announcement of a payment increase in line with rising prices will come too late.

The Chancellor’s autumn statement will be unveiled on Thursday after further rises in gas and electricity bills sent UK inflation to its highest level for 41 years, according to official figures.

Phoenix, a mother-of-four from Crystal Palace, south-east London, relies on universal credit to provide for her children, who are between four and 15.

“I think it’s too late,” the 33-year-old, who did not wish to give her surname, told the PA news agency.

“None of the people have hope. We are like the actual walking dead… so many people (are) saying the same thing.

“The struggle is real but should we really be in this turmoil?”

Phoenix said she does not expect Thursday’s announcement to make a real impact and her expectations of significant help from the Government are low.

“All the important things we need to survive are slowly being taken away,” she said.

“As far as I’m concerned, we aren’t living.

“I don’t expect anything from these politicians as it’s because of all their decisions so far we are in this mess.

“An increase to the benefits will just about cover the cost of the rise, so really and truly it’s not worth it… we have families working double jobs who are still not able to provide.”

Nicholas Wilson, who faces losing his home because increasing mortgage costs have outgrown his benefits allowance, has recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer and relies on donations from Twitter followers – of which he has more than 55,000 – to cover monthly payments.

“It’s disgraceful and it’s shameful for us… I can only survive on donations,” Mr Wilson, 65, from Hastings, East Sussex, told PA.

“(The cancer) is treatable and should be OK but it’s just pretty grim when it’s cold and I don’t have any money.

“I’m going to be going to radiation therapy every day for up to eight weeks, probably, in the new year… there’s quite a lot of travel involved in that so I’ve got far more expenses than I get in benefits coming in.”

Read the full story here:

Apart from £24bn in tax rises and £30bn in spending cuts over the next five years, what else can we expect from Mr Hunt’s Autumn statement today?

• Hunt will reduce the level at which people pay the 45p rate of income tax from £150,000 to £125,000.

• Local authorities will be allowed to increase council tax by 5 per cent without a local referendum.

• The chancellor is expected to confirm that benefits will rise in April in line with inflation. He is also expected to protect the triple lock for pensioners.

• Most of the spending cuts are pencilled in for after the next election, The Times reported. This is in the hope that a boosted economy will negate the need for cuts.

• Billions will be spent on insulating Britain’s homes and upgrading boilers in a drive to cut energy demand, Bloomberg reported. A taskforce will reportedly oversee the programme, which will include new funding from 2025 through 2028. A public information campaign to encourage people to reduce energy consumption is also thought to be in the pipelines.

• The household energy price cap is expected to rise from £2,500 to around £3,000 or £3,100, The Guardian reported. They also reported that Mr Hunt will announce further windfall taxes on oil, gas and electricity firms.

• The NHS is likely to be handed more money to deal with high inflation eating away at their budgets.

• The rate at which businesses have to register for VAT, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and the pensions lifetime allowance are set to be frozen, according to The Telegraph.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, said he was expecting some “pretty bad economic news” today.

Mr Bell told Sky News the UK faced a “grim economic outlook”, with the economy growing very slowly and “possibly ending this Parliament as weak as it began”. He added that this would be “much weaker than we were previously expecting”.

The head of the economic think tank said that he expected unemployment to rise, “which is the opposite of what we’ve been seeing in the recent past”.

Mr Bell added that tax rises would largely hit middle and higher-income households, but that lower-income households were seeing “the highest inflation rate right now and finding the cost-of-living crisis hardest to deal with”.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been photographed going for a morning jog ahead of a big day in the Commons today.

Mr Hunt will deliver his Autumn statement to the House later on this morning.