Key points from Rachel Reeves’s speech


Reuters Chancellor Rachel Reeves standing in Downing Street with her Budget red box.Reuters

Rachel Reeves is delivering a speech in the House of Commons setting out details of her second Budget since becoming chancellor.

A number of measures from the yearly tax and spending plan had already been announced in the days leading up to the statement.

Other measures have been revealed by accident after the UK’s budgetary watchdog mistakenly published its official forecast early.

Here is a summary of what we know so far.

Personal taxation

  • National Insurance (NI) and income tax thresholds frozen for extra three years beyond 2028, dragging more people into higher bands over time
  • Amount under-65s can put into cash Isas (Individual Savings Accounts) capped at £12,000 a year, with the rest of the £20,000 annual allowance reserved for investments
  • Basic and higher income tax rates on property, savings and dividend income to increase by 2 percentage points

Wages, benefits and pensions

  • Cap limiting households on universal or child tax credit from receiving payments for a third or subsequent child to be scrapped from April
  • Legal minimum wage for over-21s to rise 4.1% in April, from £12.21 to £12.71 per hour
  • Rate for 18 to 20-year-olds to go up 8.5%, from £10 to £10.85 per hour, as part of a plan to establish a single rate for all adults
  • Basic and new state pension payments to go up by 4.8% from April, more than the current rate of inflation, under the “triple lock” policy
  • People paying into their pension pot under salary sacrifice schemes to start paying NI on contributions above £2,000 a year from 2029
  • Help to Save scheme, which offers people on universal credit a bonus on savings, extended and expanded beyond 2027

Housing and property

A terrace of colourful houses in London
  • Properties in England worth more than £2m to face a council tax surcharge of between £2,500-£7,500, following a revaluation of homes in bands F, G and H

Transport

  • Fuel duty frozen for five months after April, followed by a staged increase from September 2026
  • A new mileage-based tax for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid cars to be introduced from 2028
  • Regulated rail fares for journeys in England frozen next year for the first time since 1996 (there have been periods when prices rose by less than inflation)
  • Premium cars to be excluded from Motability scheme, which allows people on certain disability benefits to lease vehicles more cheaply

Drinking and smoking

  • Tax on sugary drinks extended to pre-packaged milkshakes and lattes from 2028, reversing an exemption when the tax was introduced in 2018

UK growth, inflation and debt

EPA/Shutterstock Bank of EnglandEPA/Shutterstock
  • Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicts the UK economy will grow by 1.5% this year, upgraded from a 1% forecast in March
  • Inflation predicted to average 3.5% this year, before falling to 2.5% next year, and returning to the government’s 2% target in 2027

Other measures

  • English regional mayors to be given powers to tax overnight stays in hotels and holiday lets, echoing existing plans in Scotland and Wales
  • Cost of a single NHS prescription in England frozen at £9.90 for another year (they remain free in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland)


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