NEW: The government’s new target of two-thirds of young people in higher-level learning lacks substance, with no timeframe or clear definitions of learning. 🧵 THREAD on @KateOgdenEcon and Imran Tahir’s assessment of the government’s white paper on post-16 education and skills:

My @FinancialTimes op-ed is out! It lays out key issue with the triple lock: when prices and earnings are volatile – like in the last 15 years – state pension grows faster than earnings in the economy. This is unsustainable, and creates uncertainty for people and public finances.

"The longer we delay taking action, the more we bake in future cost pressures that will be harder to unwind." 📰 Read @Heidi_Karj in the FT on why the UK should remove the pension triple lock:

@KateOgdenEcon @NuffieldFound “Both universities and students will be watching [the Budget] to see whether the government is taking away with one hand and giving back with the other.” 📗 Read our Budget analysis so far: https://t.co/vtdBJecsXm 📆 Sign up for our post-Budget event: https://t.co/LtNskyPo4M

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@KateOgdenEcon “There are some consequential decisions here… but the bigger picture still isn’t fully joined up.” 📗 Read @KateOgdenEcon and Imran Tahir’s full report, funded by @NuffieldFound, here: https://t.co/i0iKzcnsPq

@KateOgdenEcon If the new maintenance grants were provided to those with household incomes below £25,000 – who are currently entitled to the maximum maintenance loan – then only around 10% of students would have qualified in 2023/24.

@KateOgdenEcon Maintenance grants are set to return, but only for low-income students on courses that ‘address priority skills gaps and align with the government’s Industrial Strategy’. Around 30% of full-time England-domiciled undergraduates in 2023/24 were doing these courses.

@KateOgdenEcon Maintenance loans will continue to rise in line with forecast inflation. But if the government continues the long-running freeze in income thresholds, support for students will still become less generous over time.

@KateOgdenEcon The skills white paper provides no new commitments on public funding for higher education, but does say that tuition fee caps will rise in line with inflation. This will stop the real-terms decline in per-student teaching resources we have seen since 2017/18.

@KateOgdenEcon Spending Review funding means that 16-19 education is set to rise by £450 million in real-terms next year. This is a 3% real-terms increase in per-pupil funding next year and a 9% rise over the last two years, but still leaves funding below 2010–11 levels.

It’s widely expected that the Chancellor will freeze personal tax thresholds from 2028 This would entail higher revenues from (i.e. a rise in) National Insurance Contributions & therefore breach the letter of the Labour party manifesto (copied below)

Happy Budget week! On Wed, people will compare the scale of tax rises to last year Reminder: Budget 2024 tax rise was £31.6 billion -big, but not £40bn big. Difference due to the particular way that Employer NICs is scored.

NEW: The White Paper is this government’s most wide-ranging statement on skills policy to date, but falls short of a coherent plan. 📗 @KateOgdenEcon & Imran Tahir's new report, funded by @NuffieldFound, assesses the implications of the proposed reforms: https://t.co/i0iKzcnsPq

I've written for this week's @ObserverUK about economic forecasts and how they are (mis)used. https://t.co/ITDp7JLOYC

'We spend £1,600 per person on debt interest: about 8% of all government spending.' @HelenMiller_IFS and @BenZaranko break down what the state spends its money on in our podcast episode on the options for cutting government spending. 🎧 Listen here: https://t.co/JehZEwbJ8H

'Despite austerity over the 2010s, the size of the state has jumped up in recent years' @HelenMiller_IFS and @BenZaranko discuss trends in the size of the state in our latest podcast episode on how the Chancellor could cut spending. 🎧 Listen here: https://t.co/JehZEwbJ8H

📊 Read @beeboileau and @JCribbEcon's report on health, wealth and employment for people in the run-up to the state pension age:

📈 #IFSSatStat: Women aged 55 to 64 are more likely than men of the same age to report experiencing a wide range of health conditions. Of the 12 conditions measured in our data, only poor hearing was more likely to be experienced by men than women.

🎙️NEW🎙️How to raise taxes — and get away with it w/ @Jeremy_Hunt @theobertram @Joe_Mayes @NationJames @HelenMiller_IFS

Income tax rate rises might be out but threshold freeze extensions seem locked in 🥶📉 On Wednesday’s #Peston, @PippaCrerar took us through what these freezes mean in real terms and their impact on your payslips 💷 🤓 Data from @matthewoulton from @TheIFS 📊