(Image: NQ)
The following article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politicsnewsletter.
Thanks to briefings that will no doubt irritate Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, we know a bit about what to expect from John Healey's first Budget on Wednesday.
The state pension is expected to rise 3.9%, by £489 to £13,036. That takes it above the £12,570 personal allowance, so Healey is expected to raise the tax-free allowance for low-income pensioners to match. Capital gains tax is reported to be off the table, and the tax-free pension lump sum is said to be staying.
Help with energy bills is expected, with ministers looking at scrapping gas standing charges, and January's fuel duty rise could be cancelled. There should be money for defence to fill a £4.7bn hole in the investment plan.
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What about what we don't know?
We don't know how much room Healey has. The OBR put headroom at around £24bn in March. The Resolution Foundation thinks it may have halved. The IFS says about £20bn.
We don't know whether the banks will pay more. A rise in the bank profits surcharge from 3% to 8% is reportedly under consideration. The TUC says it would raise £2.25bn a year, but the City says it would hurt investment. Scottish Labour's Michael Marra is backing the idea. Normally I'd say a Scottish Labour leader wouldn't call for something from a Labour Chancellor unless he knew he was getting it. I'm not so sure about this one.
We don't know what the "rabbit" is. Raising the personal allowance for everyone would cost about £4bn, which looks too expensive. Other possibilities include farm inheritance tax relief, or a pause to the minimum wage rise for 18 to 20-year-olds, which is a rabbit for businesses rather than young people.
And we don't yet know fully what any of it will mean for Scotland. Healey says his Budget will "move money and power out of Westminster, and into every postcode around Britain". What does that mean for the postcodes north of the border?
Reportedly, there will be an initial £285m for English mayors and regional leaders, though we don't yet know what it is for, who gets it, or whether any of it is new money.
The boffins at the Fraser of Allander Institute expect the changes to have little direct effect on Scotland's funding. If Whitehall is only changing how mayors receive money it already spends, there is nothing extra to share out. New money for things devolved here, such as transport or housing, would normally mean extra funding for Scotland under the Barnett formula. So the test on Wednesday is whether any of it is new.
But the institute makes a point worth keeping in mind. "As more funding in England flows through bespoke deals, integrated settlements and retained taxes, it might become harder to understand what funding should flow to Scotland," it says.
Scotland's share of UK funding is worked out by looking at what the UK Government spends on English services and applying the Barnett formula. That works when the money is clearly labelled. If it starts going to individual mayors through one-off deals and local tax shares, it is harder to say what counts as new spending, and so harder to say what Scotland should get.
The institute warns: "There is a risk that the funding system might become more opaque, and lead to greater scope for disagreements between different parts of the UK."
Expect this to become a bit of a battleground between the Scottish and UK Governments over the next wee while.
But the biggest unknown of all is the election.
As has been well rehearsed on these pages, there is a compelling argument for the Prime Minister to go early. Andy Burnham took office in July without a mandate of his own, and he and his Chancellor are bound by a 2024 manifesto that ruled out rises in income tax, national insurance and VAT. That and Rachel Reeves's fiscal rules leave Healey little wriggle room.
There's a political case too. Ipsos had Labour eight points ahead of the Tories over the weekend, with Reform UK third. It is the pollster's biggest lead for Burnham's party this parliament.
City investors, according to reports, read a "steady as she goes" Budget as a sign that an election is coming, on the theory that a government planning to fight soon doesn't need to take hard decisions now.
And the i paper had an intriguing anecdote about a Lib Dem councillor who was told a firm couldn't deliver Correx campaign boards for a month because it is printing a big Labour order for all of November.
Burnham was asked about it on Good Morning Britain on Monday. "There is no election coming any time soon," he said. "People may as well just put that out of their mind."
Of course, his definition of "any time soon" and yours or mine might differ. May 6, 2027 is sooner than July 6, 2029 but it isn't necessarily soon.