LONDON (Reuters) – The election triumph of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has cleared up Britain’s political outlook, but the Bank of England won’t be rushing to respond to the end of the deadlock.
The BoE will keep interest rates on hold this week, according to all 69 economists polled by Reuters.
Where there are differences, however, is over whether the British central bank’s next move will be to cut rates, following recent moves to ease policy by the European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve, or to raise them in 2020.
Britain’s economy flat-lined before the high-stakes election on Dec. 12, which added to the longstanding uncertainty about Brexit and the drag from a slowing global economy.
Little wonder, then, that in November two of the BoE’s nine interest rate-setters cast the first votes for a cut in borrowing costs since shortly after the 2016 Brexit referendum.
But since then, Johnson’s new majority in parliament has eliminated doubts about whether Brexit will happen on Jan. 31, and buried the prospect of a sharp leftward shift in politics under a Labour Party-led government.
There are also signs that the U.S.-China trade war is easing, raising the prospect of a more benign economy for whoever takes over as BoE governor from Mark Carney, who is due to stand down at the end of next month.
Samuel Tombs, an economist with Pantheon Macroeconomics, thinks Britain’s quarterly economic growth rate will double to 0.4% in the first half of 2020 as companies and consumers catch up with spending they had been putting off.
Britain’s government also plans to increase its spending.
That would create a brief window for the BoE to raise its benchmark rate from its current level of 0.75%, close to its lows for most of the 10 years since the global financial crisis, Tombs said.
“The MPC will be keen to act quickly before Brexit risks emerge again to hike and to build scope to ease again whenever the next downturn hits,” he said in a note to clients.
Johnson promised voters that he would not extend the Brexit transition period that is due to end on Dec. 31, 2020.
But many trade experts question whether a free trade deal with the European Union can be struck by then, raising the prospect of trade barriers in just over a year’s time.
While sterling and British shares soared after Thursday’s election, the prospect of renewed Brexit tensions has remained in focus for investors in British government bonds, with gilt prices implying a 40% chance of a rate cut by the end of 2020.
Ruth Gregory, an economist at Capital Economics, said the message from this week’s BoE meeting might sound similarly cautious, with Britain’s inflation rate below the BoE’s target and the jobs market faltering.
She said MPC members Michael Saunders and Jonathan Haskel could well vote for a rate cut again “and the latest data may have been sufficiently weak for at least one more dovish MPC member — possibly Gertjan Vlieghe — to join them.”
(Reporting by William Schomberg; Editing by Catherine Evans)
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
