Autumn Budget 2021
We now expect our economy to return to pre-pandemic levels by January, earlier than previously expected. Here’s a few of the announcements from today’s budget that have made that possible:
Increasing Wages - Raising the National Living Wage by 6.6% to £9.50, giving a £1,000 pay rise to 2 million of the lowest paid and reducing the Universal Credit taper rate from 63% to 55%
Freezing Fuel Duty - Today we are freezing fuel duty for the twelfth year in a row, a £1.5 billion tax cut, meaning the average driver has saved £1,900 since 2010.
Simplifying Alcohol Duty - A new Small Producer Relief so small cidermakers are incentivised to grow larger. We are cutting the price of English sparkling wine and prosecco and cutting th e tax on draught fruit ciders by 20 per cent. And until this new system is in place, we will freeze all alcohol duties for the third year in a row, including for whisky.
Cutting Beer Duty - We are also introducing a new Draught Relief on draught beer and cider – cutting duty by 5 per cent. This will boost British pubs by nearly £100 million a year – and means a permanent cut in the cost of a pint by 3 pence.
Cutting Business Rates - Cutting business rates by at least 50 per cent next year or 90 per cent of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses – and freezing all rates. Any eligible business can claim a 50 per cent discount on their bills, up to a maximum of £110,000 per business.
Keeping Britain Healthy - Resource spending on health services will increase from £133 billion at the start of the Parliament to over £177 billion by the end – an increase of over £44 billion. We will deliver 40 new hospitals, 70 hospital upgrades, 100 new community diagnostic centres, 50,000 more nurses and 50 million primary care appointments,
Supporting our Schools - We are now committing another £4.7 billion per year by 2024 to lift real terms per pupil spending to historic 2010 levels – a cash uplift of over £1,500 per pupil. We are also tripling the annual spending on Special Educational Needs places, and providing another £1.8 billion to take the total for schools catch-up funding to almost £5 billion.
Crime and justice - We are funding 20,000 new police officers; providing an extra £2.2 billion in courts, prisons and probation services, including £500 million to clear court backlogs; funding programmes to tackle neighbourhood crime, reoffending, county lines, and violence against women and girls.
Research and Development - We will maintain our target to increase annual public R&D investment to £22 billion and we will spend £20 billion a year by 2024-25 – a cash increase of 50 per cent – taking total public investment in R&D including our tax reliefs to 1.1 per cent of GDP.