Today’s news summary – Paper Talk: Business tax cuts expected in Autumn Budget
Most of Wednesday’s front pages lead with pictures of the four teenagers who are believed to have died after going missing during a camping trip in Wales. Jevon Hirst, Harvey Owen, Wilf Henderson and Hugo Morris, aged between 16 and 18, have been missing since Sunday.
Police found an overturned car, partially submerged, with four teenagers inside.
Wednesday’s Budget also makes the front pages, as well as images of Princess Kate on royal duties.
Teenage boys found
The Daily Mail suggests the students may have lain undiscovered in their upturned car for 48 hours after it came off a remote road and landed partially submerged in a ditch.
The Daily Express claims the friends “had little driving experience between them” and local residents have told the paper the weather was “atrocious” at the time they are thought to have crashed. “So Young”, says the Sun’s headline; “So Tragic”, says the Daily Mirror.
Wednesday’s Autumn Budget
The Telegraph says Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will unveil the biggest business tax cut in half a century when he delivers his statement. The paper describes the move as part of a “significant pivot” in the government’s economic approach – with the focus moving from controlling price rises to jump-starting growth.
The Times says Hunt will also cut National Insurance for 28 million people – after ministers became upbeat about the public finances in recent days.
The Guardian says the statement will have 110 measures to try and boost the stagnant economy – but reductions in income tax “are thought more likely in the spring”.
Former Tory leader Lord Howard writes in the Telegraph that Sunak’s economic plan had been “vindicated.” He says it was “absolutely necessary” to resist both unfunded tax cuts and large pay increases as part of efforts to counter high inflation – and the improving economy will now “provide some headroom” for the chancellor to begin to reduce the tax burden.
But the Mirror says Sunak and Hunt are engaged in a con that nobody will buy. “Suddenly pretending to be a pair of Robin Hoods after playing sheriff of Nottingham to tax us at the highest rate in 70 years”.