Autumn Budget 2021

On Wednesday 27^th October, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, unveiled his plans for the Autumn budget including a proposed £150 billion post-Covid spending spree by 2024/25. He admitted that inflation is set to rise on average by 4% over the next year and taxes are also set to rise.

One of the biggest controversies is the cut to Air Passenger Duty despite the upcoming COP26 summit although the Chancellor claims that £30 billion has already been committed to greener measures since March 2021. The promise to increase Research and Development funding to £22 billion has been broken and now pushed back to 2026/27.

Some of the key points highlighted were:

• Universal Credit taper cut from 63p to 55p by 1^st December
• Universal Credit work allowance set to rise to £500 a year by 1^st December
• Increase to National Minimum Wages at each age band (for over 23’s the rise is from £8.91 per hour to £9.50 per hour in April 2022)
• Class 1 National Insurance Rates increase in April 2022 on pay over £9,568 from 12% to 13.25%
• Bank corporation tax surcharge cut from 8% to 3%
• £6 billion to go to the NHS to help with technology and backlogs
• NHS budget to rise by 3.8% pa in real terms for the next 3 years
• Duty rates on cigarettes to rise by RPI plus 2% immediately along with an RPI rise to hand rolling tobacco
• “Draught relief” on draught beer and cider cutting tax by 5%
• £2.6 billion of funding for 50 local road upgrades over the long term
• £5 billion already committed to local road maintenance
• Overseas aid spending will return to 0.7% in 2024/25
• Air passenger duty cut for UK domestic flights
• £11.5 billion to support the building of affordable houses
• Tax relief for theatres, orchestras, museums, and galleries doubled immediately
• Half price business rates for those in retail, hospitality, and leisure
• A one-stop-shop announced to deliver parenting programmes, breastfeeding advice, and mental health support
• £4.7 billion to be invested in England’s core schools’ budget and £1.8 billion to fund education recovery and catch up