Philip Hammond has been appointed chancellor of the Exchequer as George Osborne quit the government in Theresa May’s reshuffle of the cabinet.
Ms May was formally sworn in as prime minister yesterday (13 July), after David Cameron stepped down in the wake of voters’ deciding Britain should leave the European Union.
A brief statement on the government’s website announced the change, which sees Mr Hammond promoted from the role of foreign secretary and Mr Osborne unseated after six years leading the Treasury.
Focus will now fall on Mr Hammond for indications of how he will manoeuvre the country’s finances in light of the Brexit vote.
Pension experts told FTAdviser’s sister title Financial Adviser they expect the EU referendum result to derail the widespread pension freedoms changes to pensions, especially around the taxation of retirement pots on death.
According to parliamentary monitoring website Theyworkforyou, Mr Hammond’s voting record reveals an MP who on issues related to financial services has generally voted for lower taxes, and in favour of measures to cut tax avoidance.
On the vast majority of issues he sided with the government under former PM Mr Cameron.
Like Ms May, he also campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union.
He backed plans encouraging occupational pensions – though his record specifically on auto-enrolment is mixed - and for raising the threshold at which people start paying income tax, two key pillars of government policy since 2010.
He has almost always voted for increasing VAT, and for increasing the higher tax rate applied to income over £150,000.
Mr Hammond voted against an annual tax on the value of expensive homes – branded the “mansion tax” - a policy floated by the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition government and later scrapped by the Tories when they won a majority in 2015.
He has also backed cuts to corporation tax and measures to reduce tax avoidance, and a mixture of for against on the issue of giving tax incentives to encourage companies to invest.
