ISSUE NO. 52 · THURSDAY 15 OCTOBER 2026

Britain added 3.7m payroll jobs and 2.3m more out-of-work claimants, ISA millionaires hit a record 7,730, and the cheapest Budget fix is free Sunday trading

Three stories today and not one of them asks the Chancellor for money. Two weeks from a Budget where every spending line is already contested, that is the thread worth pulling.

The first is the problem Westminster has left alone for a decade, and two official reviews have made that impossible. The second is a list of asks from London business so cheap they barely register at the Treasury. The third is a record set by people who did nothing clever at all — they simply waited.

Below: reviews that have run out of road, four fixes that cost almost nothing, a record nobody rushed, four numbers, the diary and one calculator.

Lead

Britain created 3.7m payroll jobs over eleven years and put 2.3m more people onto out-of-work benefits over the same stretch.

Two reviews are landing at once. The Timms Review into Personal Independence Payment judged parts of the system unfit for purpose in its July interim report, and the full findings are expected any day. The Milburn Review found young people’s benefits cost the state twenty-five times what it spends getting them into work, a ratio it called shameful. The Centre for Social Justice has put the jobs data beside that: of the 3.7m extra payroll jobs recorded to 2025, 734,000 went to British nationals. Roughly one new car in seven registered here is a Motability vehicle. The parties will read those figures in opposite directions, and neither can pretend they are absent. Read the full story →

The Numbers

Four numbers. The index barely moved, the jobless rate has not shifted since May, cash savings still lose to prices, and the state pays over five per cent to borrow for ten years.

More News

Large shops in England and Wales must still shut after six hours on a Sunday, and lifting that would cost the Exchequer almost nothing.

Karim Fatehi of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry has put four asks to the Chancellor and not one is a spending programme. Let large stores choose their Sunday hours, as smaller shops already do. Restore VAT-free shopping for overseas visitors, which he argues hands European cities an edge while Britain goes without. Exempt employers from National Insurance on hiring a young person out of work and out of study, so the relief follows the person rather than the whole wage bill. And give new London floats a five-year listing holiday, at a moment when takeovers are outpacing listings. Each one removes a barrier instead of funding something. Read the full story →

The count of stocks and shares ISA millionaires rose by more than half in a single tax year, to a record 7,730.

Figures the savings app Plum obtained from HMRC show 2,660 more savers crossed the million mark in 2023/24, up from 5,070 and the largest annual rise since 2016. The average holding was around £1.3m in April 2024; about sixty savers held roughly £4m each and the top twenty-five averaged £11.9m. Plum’s Will Bryant puts it down to time rather than windfalls, with growth eventually earning growth of its own. The rules are being pushed the same way: the cash allowance drops to £12,000 from next April while the stocks and shares limit stays at £20,000, and pensions enter the inheritance tax net from April 2027. Read the full story →

On the Diary

• Today, 7.00am BST — Monthly GDP, August. The growth figure the Budget forecast will be built on.
• Today, 7.00am BST — UK trade and production, August. What Britain sold, bought and made, with the Gulf disruption inside it.
• Friday, 9.30am BST — Foreign investment and trade, 2023. How much of Britain’s trade actually runs through foreign-owned firms.

The Toolbox

Every issue carries one calculator from the site, picked to match what has just happened. No sign-up, no charge, and it shows its workings on the page.

Compound Interest Calculator

“Nobody saved their way to a million. Run a monthly contribution forward at a rate you choose and you can see the point where the growth starts doing more work than the money going in.”

The Close

There is a pattern in today’s three stories and it is not about money. Each is a rule set a long time ago for reasons that have stopped applying — when a large shop may open, when a sickness benefit may stop, how much of an allowance has to sit in cash. None costs the Treasury much to change. All cost somebody something to leave alone. That is the awkward part of a Budget built on decisions rather than sums: the cheap fixes are the ones with no excuse left.

If something here is wrong, or there is something you want dug into, just reply. It comes straight to me.

MJB