We know that Simon Jupp, fearing a wipe out at the general election, puts a lot of thought and effort in upping his profile locally. 

So was it our Parliamentary Private Secretary who advised Mark Harper to introduce a new livery for “Team Transport”? 

Please alert Owl to any sightings of Simon sporting his PPS coat (or is it only for ministers?)

“After March of 2025 the Government doesn’t have any spending plans.” [aka a scorched earth policy – Owl]

No 10 on collision course with Bank of England and OBR over economy

The Government is on a collision course with the Bank of England and Britain’s budget watchdog as they clash over whether or not the UK economy is on the up.

Hugo Gye, Callum Mason inews.co.uk

The Governor of the Bank warned that the UK was facing years of low growth while the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the Chancellor’s “vague” plans to cut spending put the public finances at risk.

But No 10 hit back at the warnings, pointing out that previous OBR forecasts have been too pessimistic and insisting that business views of the British economy are “very positive”.

Bank chief Andrew Bailey said this week: “If you look at what I call the potential growth rates of the economy, there’s no doubt it’s lower than it has been in much of my working life.” He suggested interest rates would stay high for an extended period of time to deal with stubborn inflation.

Speaking to MPs, the head of the OBR Richard Hughes said: “It is very difficult to assess the credibility of the Government’s spending plans, because after March of 2025 the Government doesn’t have any spending plans.” Jeremy Hunt has promised to limit growth in state spending after 2025 but has not explained how this will affect individual Whitehall departments.

Mr Hughes added: “In effect because he hasn’t provided any detail about the choices involved in delivering those numbers, we don’t know if they’re plausible or not… I think they are a very big fiscal risk, partly because they are so uncertain.”

In response to the warnings from the two institutions, a spokesman for Rishi Sunak said: “We’ve listened very carefully to the OBR and the Bank of England, but we are firmly of the view that the economy has turned the corner. We have halved inflation, and it is forecast to fall below 3 per cent next year.

“You’ll remember the OBR said a year ago, in the first part of this year the economy would shrink by 1 per cent, and obviously it has grown.

“The revisions we’ve seen mean the UK is now growing faster than France, Germany, Italy and Japan. We’ve recovered faster from the pandemic than France, Germany and Japan. The IMF predicts UK will grow faster than Germany, France, Italy, Japan.”

A No 10 source pointed to the promise by companies to invest an extra £30bn in Britain made at a summit this week, saying: “The Global Investment Summit showed what investors think of UK – the mood music was very positive.”

City Minister Bim Afolami urged regulators to be more pro-growth, telling a gathering of bankers on Tuesday: “If you’re regulating a market, in any area, there’s no point having the safest graveyard. Animal spirits need to be there, we need to innovate, we need to drive growth and initiative.”

Transport Secretary Mark Harper added: “The forecast that we had last year said we were going to have a recession this year and actually the British economy turned out to be much stronger than that.”

A Treasury source insisted there was no split between the Government and the Bank of England on the need to tackle inflation despite the growing divide in rhetoric, saying: “We are more aligned in policy terms than we have been previously in the efforts to bring down inflation.”

Charles Goodhart, a former rate-setter at the Bank, said that Mr Bailey was right to warn markets of the risk that interest rates would have to stay at their current high level for at least another year.

He told i: “There is great uncertainty about events, particularly political events, in the next year. We do not know how the two major conflicts will develop. Moreover, the greater reliance on fixed mortgage deals means that the effect of tightening monetary policy now involves greater lags.

“So, there is considerable uncertainty about the likely rate of growth of demand and output. What Andrew Bailey is trying to prevent is markets coming to the conclusion now that rates will come down at some stage in 2024, because that would ease monetary policy unduly at this stage.”

Austerity forcing short term decisions with long term negative consequences? – Owl

A council is considering breaching its own policies by selling off two multi-million pound landmark sites for student housing.

Miles Davis Politics Reporter BBC Devon

A report has recommended Exeter City Council should sell the former leisure centre site at Clifton Hill and the Mary Arches multi-storey car park without restrictions on use.

Councillors are considering the sales despite a council policy not to sell off land for student accommodation.

Exeter City Council needs to raise millions of pounds to pay off debts from its failed housing development housing company, Exeter City Living.

The report going before the executive of Exeter City Council on Tuesday evening shows the council is likely to be left with an outstanding loan of about £9m as a result of the winding down of Exeter City Living.

The report states: “The council’s current corporate policy is not to dispose of any of its land for Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) in the city centre.”

Valuations carried out for the sale of the two sites have not been made public but it said if the council stuck to that policy it could lose out by “something in the region of 70% of the site’s potential value”.

When the council announced the demolition of Mary Arches car park in December 2022 the council leader, Phil Bialyk, said: “I can be clear, if it is the city council’s land, there will be no purpose-built student accommodation.”

On Tuesday, Mr Bialyk, Labour and Cooperative Party, said: “The officers have a duty to advise me and the executive as to the potential value of all the sites for whatever purpose.

“We have to cover the original debt that we now have to deal with going forward.”

According to the council’s report specialist student accommodation is “failing to meet rising demand” with about 29,000 full time students at the University of Exeter, and numbers expected to increase to about 36,500 by 2026.

The Clifton Hill leisure centre closed in 2018 and was demolished in 2022.

Michael Mitchell, Liberal Democrat councillor and Progressive Group co-leader, said: “The community surrounding the Clifton Hill site are rather concerned about the possibility of student accommodation being built on the old Clifton hill leisure centre site.

“A commitment was made by this council not to allow PBSA on this site and I hope they will not renege on this decision as a result of the failure of Exeter City Living.”

‘Dismayed’

Anne Jobson, leader of the Conservatives on the council, said she was “dismayed” to read the report.

She said: “I would have thought that within Exeter there would be a developer for residential housing or for a housing association or for affordable/social housing which is what we need in Exeter.

“What we are looking for is housing that will accommodate people that work in Exeter – care workers, teachers and nurses who find it hard to get into the rental sector and don’t qualify for social housing.”

Diana Moore, Green Party councillor and Progressive Group co-leader, said: “There has simply been a failure by the executive to provide proper oversight of Exeter City Living and it has turned council assets into liabilities.”