Good morning!
Welcome back to the Politics Hub on this Friday, 31 October.
It may be Halloween, but Rachel Reeves will be hoping she’s had her fright for the week after it emerged that she had not paid for a rental licence on her property in London.
After the lettings agent the family used apologised last night for having said they’d arrange the licence, but failing to do so, the PM’s ethics adviser said in a letter to him that the error was “clearly inadvertent”.
However, Sir Keir Starmer did give his chancellor a gentle telling-off in a letter of his own, saying it was “regrettable” he had not been made aware of correspondence between the lettings agent and her husband sooner, having suggested on Wednesday she was “not aware that a licence was necessary”.
Helpfully for Reeves, the King announced that he was stripping his brother, Andrew, of all his titles and kicking him out of his mansion in Windsor, so her housing issues have dropped down the news agenda.
But what will remain high on the agenda is the budget she is due to deliver in less than a month, and at the end of the day today, she will receive the third fiscal forecast ahead of the big day on 26 November.
But she’s had a bit of a telling off from Labour peer Harriet Harman, who has told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that hinting at a rise in income tax at the budget only to not go through with it in a bid to win over voters would be “deplorable”.
What the government wants to be talking about is its announcement that businesses in sectors like steel, cement, glass, and chemicals will receive a 90% discount on electricity network charges. Bring on the growth!
We’ll be discussing all of that and more with…
Trade minister Sir Chris Bryant at 7.15am;Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake at 8.15am.
Follow along for the very latest.