Alcohol, fuel and tax: Key announcements from the budget
Here are the key points from Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s budget speech:
• The chancellor says there are “challenging” months ahead, adding that inflation in September was 3.1% and is likely to rise further – the OBR expect it to average 4% over the next year
• Pressures caused by supply chains and energy crisis will “take months to ease”.
• Economy to return to its pre-COVID level at the turn of the year – an improvement on OBR forecasts revealed in March
• Economy expected to grow by 6% in 2022, and 2.1%, 1.3% and 1.6% over the next three years
• In July last year, at the height of the pandemic, unemployment was expected to peak at 12% but the OBR now expect it to peak at 5.2%
• Compared to 2020, wages have grown by 3.4%
• Underlying debt is forecast to be 85.2% of GDP this year
• It will reach 85.4% in 2022-23, before peaking at 85.7% in 2023-24
• It then falls in the final three years of the forecast from 85.1% to 83.3%
• Total departmental spending over this parliament will increase by £150bn, growing by 3.8% a year in real terms
• Spending on healthcare to increase by £44bn to over £177bn by the end of this parliament
• Extra revenue from health and social care levy will go towards NHS and social care as promised
• Health budget will be the largest since 2010, with record investment in research and development, better screening, 40 new hospitals and 70 hospital upgrades
• Mr Sunak says the budget funds an ambition to recruit 20,000 new police officers
• Extra £2.2bn for courts, prisons and probation services, including £500m to reduce the backlog in courts
• Programmes to tackle neighbourhood crime, reoffending, county lines crimes, violence against women and girls, victims’ services, and improved response to rape allegations
• £3.8bn for the “largest prison-building programme in a generation”
• £11.5bn to build up to 180,000 affordable home – 20% more than the previous programme
• £1.8bn to bring 1,500 hectares of brownfield land into use
• £640m a year to help those who are rough sleepers and homeless
• £5bn to remove unsafe cladding from the highest risk buildings, partly funded by a residential property developers’ tax, which will be levied on developers with profits over £25m at the rate of 4%
• £21bn for roads as part of a larger investment in transport
• £2.6bn for upgrades of over 50 local roads
• More than £5bn for road maintenance – enough to fill one million more potholes a year
• More than £5bn for buses, cycling and walking improvements
• HGV levy (previously suspended until August) will now be suspended until 2023
• Vehicle excise duty for heavy goods vehicles to be frozen
• Funding to improve lorry park facilities
• £46bn investment in railways, with an integrated rail plan to be published soon
• £5.7bn for London-style transport settlements in Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Tees Valley, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, West Midlands, West of England
• £300m for parenting programmes for families, tailored services to help with perinatal mental health
• £150m to support training and development for early years workforce
• £200m for Supporting Families programme which helps families with varied needs
• Over £200m to continue the holiday activity and food programme
• £560m for youth services – enough to fund up to 300 youth clubs in England
• More than £200m to build or transform up to 8,000 community football pitches in the UK
• £2bn new funding to help schools and colleges, bringing total support (some already announced) to almost £5bn
• Restoring per pupil funding to 2010 levels in real terms, equivalent to a cash increase for every pupil of more than £1,500
• 30,000 new school places for children with special needs and disabilities
• New 50% business rates discount for businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, including pubs, music venues, cinemas, restaurants, hotels, theatres, and gyms
• This will mean any eligible business can claim a discount up to a maximum of £110,000 – a tax cut worth almost £1.7bn
• Mr Sunak says that, together with small business rates relief, this means more than 90% of all businesses in these sectors will see a discount of at least 50%
• An overhaul of alcohol duty, cutting the number of main duty rates from 15 to six – the stronger the drink, the higher the rate
• Small producer relief will extend the principle of small brewers’ relief to small cidermakers and others making alcoholic drinks of less than 8.5% ABV
• Sparkling wines will pay the same duty as still wines of equivalent strength, rather than the 28% they currently pay. Duty will also be cut for fruit cider
• Planned rise in fuel duty will be cancelled, meaning that – after 12 consecutive years of frozen rates, the average car driver will save a total of £1,900
• National living wage to increase next year by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour. For a full time worker, that’s a pay rise worth over £1,000
• This move will help more than two million of the lowest-paid workers, Mr Sunak says
• Mr Sunak says his goal is to reduce taxes and the universal credit taper, which reduces financial support as people work more hours, is in his sights
• The rate is currently 63%, so for every extra £1 someone earns, their universal credit is reduced by 63p. Mr Sunak announces plans to cut this by 8 percentage points (from 63% to 55%). This will come into effect “within weeks”
• Work allowances being increased by £500 – combined with the change to the taper, this is a tax cut worth more than £2bn, he says. Nearly two million families will keep, on average, an extra £1,000 a year
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, is to sign off the appointment of a chair of English football’s new referee within days.
Sky News has learnt that David Kogan, a media industry veteran who has helped negotiate a string of television rights deals across the sport in recent decades, is to be formally approved as chair of the Independent Football Regulator (IFR).
Whitehall sources said an announcement could be made by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as soon as this week, although they added that the timetable could slip by a few days.
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Once approved, Mr Kogan is expected to face a committee of MPs for a confirmation hearing early next month, the sources added.
Sky News revealed last weekend that Mr Kogan had emerged as the frontrunner for the post after an earlier shortlist of three candidates was passed over.
The new regulator has the firm backing of Sir Keir Starmer, and is a key element of legislation currently passing through Parliament.
Mr Kogan, whose boardroom roles have included a directorship at state-owned Channel 4, was initially approached during a previous recruitment process launched under the last Conservative administration.
He has some links to Labour, having in the past donated money to a number of individual parliamentary candidates, chairing LabourList, the independent news site, and writing two books about the party.
Mr Kogan has had extensive experience at the top of English football, having advised clients including the Premier League, English Football League, Scottish Premier League and UEFA on television rights contracts.
Last year, he acted as the lead negotiator for the Women’s Super League and Championship on their latest five-year broadcasting deals with Sky – the immediate parent company of Sky News – and the BBC.
His current roles include advising the chief executives of CNN, the American broadcast news network, and The New York Times Company on talks with digital platforms about the growing influence of artificial intelligence on their industries.
In recent months, Sky News has disclosed the identities of the shortlisted candidates for the role, with former Aston Villa FC and Liverpool FC chief executive Christian Purslow one of three candidates who made it to a supposedly final group of contenders.
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy. File pic: Reuters
The others were Sanjay Bhandari, who chairs the anti-racism football charity Kick It Out, and Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, who chaired the new parliamentary watchdog established after the MPs expenses scandal.
The apparent hiatus in the appointment of the IFR’s £130,000-a-year chair threatened to reignite speculation that Sir Keir was seeking to diminish its powers amid a broader clampdown on Britain’s economic watchdogs.
Both 10 Downing Street and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have sought to dismiss those suggestions, with insiders insisting that the IFR will be established largely as originally envisaged.
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The creation of the IFR, which will be based in Manchester, is among the principal elements of legislation now progressing through parliament, with Royal Assent expected before the summer recess.
The Football Governance Bill has completed its journey through the House of Lords and will be introduced in the Commons shortly, according to the DCMS.
The regulator was conceived by the Tories in the wake of the furore over the failed European Super League project, but has triggered deep unrest in parts of English football.
Its creation forms part of a process that represents the most fundamental shake-up in the oversight of English football in the game’s history.
The establishment of the body comes with the top tier of the professional game gripped by civil war, with Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City at the centre of a number of legal cases with the Premier League over its financial dealings.
The Premier League is also keen to agree a long-delayed financial redistribution deal with the EFL before the regulator is formally launched, although there has been little progress towards that in the last year.
“We do not comment on speculation,” a DCMS spokesperson said when asked about the impending announcement of Mr Kogan as the IFR chair.
“No appointment has been made and the recruitment process for [IFR] chair is ongoing.”
A UK-based car distributor has seen its shares hit a four-year low after reporting a fall in sales and warning of hits ahead from Donald Trump’s trade war.
Inchcape, which exports cars for manufacturers across more than 40 countries globally, saw its stock lose up to 16.9% in early trading on Wednesday after its first quarter trading update.
It told investors that while it was not currently experiencing damage from the Trump administration’s 25% tariffs on all US car imports, revenue fell by 5% over the three months to March to £2.1bn.
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Inchcape reported a resilient performance from its Americas division but struggles in its Asia-Pacific and European markets.
The period was dominated by trade war fears generally as the US president’s second term got under way and was marked by a surge in demand for goods in the US in a bid to beat any tariffs he threatened to impose.
Inchcape blamed the revenue decline on a strong comparable period in 2024 and “mixed market momentum”, led by that dash for shipments to the US to beat the imposition of any additional US duties.
They were universally imposed earlier this month, but Mr Trump has since signalled that some exemptions may soon be applied.
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Jobs fears as Jaguar halts shipments
There are fears that a prolonged period of trade disruption could result in job losses within the UK car industry and its supply chain.
Inchcape reaffirmed its 2025 guidance but said that excluded any impacts from tariffs.
Its actions to mitigate the effects included a focus on costs and inventory.
Read more:
UK to be among those worst hit by trade war, IMF warns
US trade deal talks may be impossible task for the chancellor
Chief executive Duncan Tait said: “Demand is not currently being impacted by the tariff situation, although we do expect to see potential impacts on supply from our OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), the competitive environment, and market demand.
“We are taking proactive steps to support our key stakeholders, including taking a conservative approach to managing inventory levels, ensuring we remain disciplined on costs, focusing on cash generation and maintaining our strong balance sheet.”
Shares had recovered some poise by mid-morning, trading down by just over 7% following the initial slump.
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