Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has unveiled his latest plans for tax and spend with a number of key announcements.
OBR states inflation is to drop to 2.8% by the end of 2024 and will fall to 2% in 2025.
OBR predicts that the UK will grow by 0.6% this year, and 0.7% next year. This is followed by 1.4% in 2025, 1.9% in 2026, 2% in 2027 and 1.7% in 2028.
Universal Credit spending will increase by 6.7%, which equates to £470m for 5.5m households.
Government will increase duty on hand-rolling tobacco by an additional 10% above the tobacco duty escalator but will freeze duty on alcohol to help British pubs.
Pensions go up by the highest of inflation, earnings, or 2.5%. From April 2024, the full state pension will increase by 8.5% to £221.20 a week – up to £900 more a year. Triple lock committed in full.
Ministry of Defence will meet its NATO commitment to spend 2% of GDP.
£10m will be given to support the veterans’ places, pathways and people programme.
£450m given to local authority housing fund to deliver 2,400 new homes.
Local councils will be able to recover the full costs of major business planning applications in order to speed up the process.
£50m to be spent until 2025 to increase number of apprentices in engineering and other key growth sectors.
£500m to be invested over next two years to make UK an AI powerhouse.
An additional £4.5bn spent on manufacturing between 2025 and 2030. This includes £975m for aerospace and £520m for life sciences.
New investment zones created in the West Midlands, East Midlands and in Greater Manchester.
Financial incentives for Investment Zones and tax reliefs for Freeports extended from 5 to 10 years.
Class 2 National Insurance will be fully abolished.
Class 4 National Insurance at 9% on all earnings between £12,570 and £50,270 will see that cut by 1% to 8%.
National living wage to increase by 9.8% to £11.44 an hour
Full expensing for companies purchasing equipments to be made permanent.
Business rates for small business frozen for a year. And the 75% rates discount for retail, hospitality and leisure will also be extended for another year.
30 hours of free child care for working parents with children aged between one and two confirmed for April.
If after 18 months, a job seeker has still not found employment then they will have to accept mandatory work placement to increase their skills and improve their employability.
National Insurance has been cut by 2% to 10% from January 2024.
