No man’s land prior to General Election

Published:  May 2024

Yesterday (30 May 2024) saw the dissolution of Parliament, marking the start of the pre-election restrictions period, historically referred to as ‘purdah’.  When parliament is dissolved, all unfinished parliamentary business falls – including any bills that have not received Royal Assent.  Bills cannot be carried over from one parliament to another, reflecting the convention that no parliament can bind its successor.  As a consequence, there are now no Ministers of Parliament in the House of Commons or House of Lords or any Prime Minister’s question time until after 4 July 2024!

So, what does this mean?  Some of the changes announced in the recent Spring Budget had a hard deadline on getting Royal Assent and becoming law.  After receiving Royal Assent on 24 May, a number of measures outlined in the Finance (No.2) Bill have been confirmed and it:

• increases the thresholds for the high income child benefit charge (HICBC) for 2024/25 and subsequent tax years.  The lower threshold is increased from £50,000 to £60,000 and the higher threshold from £60,000 to £80,000;
• reduces the higher rate of capital gains tax for residential property gains from 28% to 24% with effect for disposals made on or after 6 April 2024;
• abolishes multiple dwellings relief for stamp duty land tax (SDLT).  This measure applies to land transactions where the effective date falls on or after 1 June 2024, subject to transitional arrangements; and
• ensures that individuals cannot bypass the transfer of assets abroad (ToAA) anti-avoidance legislation by using a closely-held company to transfer assets offshore.

Now we wait on the manifestos and for the campaign trails to ramp up!

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