Economy Forecast
- The economy is set to grow by 1.8% next year, growing by 1.8% in 2024; 2.5% in 2025; 2.1% in 2026; and 1.9% in 2027.
Government Debt
- The government debt is on track, with underlying debt to be 92.4% of GDP by next year, falling every year after until 2027-28.
Childcare
- The government will fund schools & local authorities to increase the supply of wraparound care, all parents of school-age children will be able to drop their children off between 8 am and 6 pm.
- 30 hours of free weekly childcare to be extended to cover children from 9 months to 4 years, where both parents work at least 16 hours, the provision applies within term time (38 weeks of the year).
- The Qualifying Care Relief threshold is doubling to nearly £18,140 which will mean a tax cut for a qualifying carer, averaging £450 a year.
- Parents on Universal Credit will receive upfront up to £951 for one child and £1,630 for two children per month.
- The government is to pilot incentive payments of £600 for childminders joining the profession or £1200 to those who join through an agency.
- Nursery funding will increase from September to £204m increasing to £288m next year.
- From next year qualifying caregivers will see their tax-free allowance rise from £10,000 to £18,000.
Returning to work
- For the over 50s there will be midlife MOTs, ‘returnership’ apprenticeships and changes to pension limit.
- The Administrative Earnings Threshold will rise from the equivalent of 15 hours to 18 hours at National Living Wage.
- £400m has been allocated to increase the availability of mental health and musculoskeletal resources for workers.
- There will be an additional support programme to help disabled and those with long-term conditions into work. The government will spend up to £4,000 per person providing support & help to find appropriate jobs. Funding 50,000 places every year.
- There will be an £11.5m employment support program to help up to 10,000 Ukrainians in the UK, providing English language training, employment support and improve employment outcomes.
Pensions
- The pensions annual tax-free allowance will increase from £40,000 to £60,000 and the Lifetime Allowance previously set at £1.07m will be abolished.
Fuel Duty and Energy
- The planned increase of 11p in fuel duty will be cancelled and the 5p reduction will be maintained for a further 12 months.
- The Energy Price Guarantee will remain at £2,500 a year for a typical household until the end of June, saving the average family £160.
- From 1 July the premium energy prepayment meters customers pay will come to an end. Bringing prepayment meter charges in line with comparable direct debit payments, saving households an average of £45 a year.
Alcohol duties
- Alcohol duties will rise in line with inflation.
- From 1 August the duty on average strength draught products in pubs will be up to 11p lower than the duty in supermarkets.
Digital
- There will be a £1m prize for AI research every year for the next 10 years, for the most ground-breaking AI research.
- The government will accept 9 of Sir Patrick Vallance’s recommendations to better regulate the digital technologies of the future, such as AI.
Business Tax
- Small or medium-sized businesses can claim a credit worth £27 for every £100 they spend, if they spend 40% or more of their total expenditure on Research and Development.
- Annual Investment Allowance will be increased to £1m for smaller businesses, meaning 99% of all businesses can deduct the full value of all their investment from that year’s taxable profits.
- Corporation tax to increase from 19% to 25%. Firms which make a profit of more than £250,000 will pay 25% tax on their profits from April.
- There will be tax relief support for Film, TV & Video Game Industries.
- Tax will be cut for companies that want to invest in the UK, reducing their tax by up to 25p for every £1 they spend on plant and machinery.
Voluntary sector
- £10m will be assigned for the next 10 years for the voluntary sector to stop families from experiencing suicide.
Levelling up
- There will be 12 new Investment Zones in the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, the North East, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, East Midlands, Teesside and Liverpool, and at least one in each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. To grow strengths in key industries, level up, attract new investment into communities, create jobs and drive growth.
- £400m to roll out Levelling Up Partnerships, helping regenerate 20 places across England.
- The third round of the Levelling Up Fund has been confirmed, providing a further £1bn to local communities to invest in new local priority infrastructure projects.
- £8.8bn for a second round of the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements, to help develop mass transit networks and sustainable transport options across England’s city regions.
Leisure Centres
- A £63m fund to support public leisure centres with swimming pools. £40m will go towards making pools more energy efficient in the long term, with £20m to help leisure centres deal with rising costs.
Environmental
- Nuclear power will be classed as “environmentally sustainable”, giving it access to the same investment incentives as renewable energy.
- There will be £20bn of funding to support carbon capture & storage projects across the UK.
Defense
- £11bn is to be added to the defense budget over the next five years, and it will be nearly 2.25% of GDP by 2025.
- £33 million to help veterans over the next 3 years access extra housing, with additional support to help veterans with specialist care for physical injuries