EU leaders have agreed in principle to extend Brexit until 31 January 2020. At the same time, the UK government announced that its planned Autumn Budget for 6 November will no longer take place.

The UK was originally due to leave the EU on 31 October.

According to The BBC, EU Council President Donald Tusk said the extension was a "flextension" - meaning the UK could leave before the deadline if a deal was approved by Parliament. Tusk will now seek the UK's formal agreement to the decision, before formalising the extension through a written procedure among the 27 other EU nations.

The extension also comes as MPs prepare to vote on proposals by Boris Johnson for an early general election on 12 December.

Meanwhile, last Friday, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, wrote to the Treasury Select Committee, “Parliament has voted for a delay to the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, so the Government is now calling for a General Election. I can therefore confirm that have decided not to bring forward the Budget on 6 November.”

With the Government announcing that it has cancelled its November Budget, Julia Kermode, Chief Executive of The Freelancer & Contractor Services Association (FCSA), commented, “It was always going to be an ambitious move by the Chancellor to hold a budget on 6 November, so close to the Brexit deadline, so it is no surprise that it has now been cancelled.” 

“It now seems likely that there will be a Spring budget as the Government has to have a finance bill in order to collect tax,” Kermode said. ” With the off-payroll legislation already drafted it is likely that it will be included in the next budget and could be rushed through without proper scrutiny.   This is concerning as I would like to remind the Government that it is important to also legislate for umbrella firms to be regulated from April 2020 in order to deal with those firms purporting to be umbrellas when they are, in fact, tax avoidance schemes. 

“We saw an exponential increase in such schemes as a direct consequence of the 2017 reforms in the public sector, so it is essential that the government deals with this known unintended consequence.  We know that contractors will be aggressively targeted by the schemes which put them at very significant personal financial risk, and ultimately facing very large tax bills,” Kermode said.