Labour has won by a landslide in the 2024 General Election but what does this mean for tax policy, people’s pensions and housing?
Labour’s manifesto policies included a review of the pensions landscape and increased investment from pension funds in UK markets.
Appearing on the FT Adviser podcast, Claire Trott, divisional director of retirement and holistic planning at Technical Connection, said a review of the whole pensions landscape was something the UK really needed.
"There's a lot of ifs and buts, and there's a lot of unfinished legislation at the moment.
"All the talk prior to the announcement of the election coming up was that Labour was going to reinstate the lifetime allowance immediately and that they were going to look at flat rate tax relief.
"They've calmed that a little, which for me, is definitely a win."
Something she was keen to see Labour change was auto-enrolment contributions.
"It would be a real winner for those lower earners to try and get them on the savings ladder.
"Auto-enrolment has been a brilliant win, but it really needs to be expanded to make sure that you're saving enough, because it's not enough at the moment to actually retire on."
Tax pledges included levying VAT on private school fees and closing loopholes in the non-dom tax status.
But aside from that, Matthew Todd, associate director at RSM, said he was not expecting any radical approaches to tax changes from Labour.
"They've set out in the manifesto a few things that they do want to do.
"They might take six months, maybe until next spring, and then assess where the economy is at against where they thought they would be based on their manifesto, and at that point, if tax receipts aren't where they need to be, they might have a look."
He added: "At that point capital gains tax and inheritance tax is probably where they're going to look, on the basis of the pledge not to look at the main big taxes or not to make changes there."
In terms of housing and mortgages, Labour pledged to make the current government mortgage guarantee scheme permanent, as part of its “Freedom to Buy” scheme.
In terms of stamp duty to encourage more first-time buyers, the current SDLT threshold increase to £425,000 is due to finish next year but Ray Boulger, senior mortgage technical manager at John Charcol, said he would not be surprised if Labour extended this.
He said: "The big problem with these different increases in stamp duty is it creates a hiatus as you come up to the end, and then you've got a big drop off.