Autumn Statement 2023: Top announcements from chancellor at a glance
Here are the main announcements from Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement to MPs:
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicts an average inflation rate of 2.8% by the end of next year and 2% by 2025.
The OBR sees “overall” UK growth in 2023 of 0.6%. Economic growth of 0.7% is expected in 2024, doubling to 1.4% in 2025.
The independent forecaster expects debt will increase as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), the measure of everything produced in the economy.
Borrowing will be 91.6% of GDP next year then 92.7% in the 2024 to 2025 financial year.
The minimum wage – which the government sometimes refers to as the national living wage – will rise to £11.44 per hour from April.
That’s an increase of £1.02 from the current rate of £10.42.
This rate will now apply to Britons over 21, bringing the eligible age down from 23. For anyone under 21, the minimum wage is lower – but this is also increasing, as is the lowest legal pay for apprentices.
Those aged 18 to 20 will get at least £8.60 an hour from April, which is an increase of £1.11. For those 16 and 17, and apprentices, the minimum pay will be £6.40 – a rise of £1.12 on last year.
Benefits will increase by 6.7%, the September rate of inflation, as is customary, with the increase coming into effect in April.
The chancellor announced he will increase the local housing allowance rate to the 30th percentile of local market rents, which he says will give 1.6 million households an average of £800 support next year.
Mr Hunt reaffirmed government plans to remove benefits and step up monitoring of welfare recipients in an effort to bring more people into work.
Jobseekers will have benefits such as free medicines and legal aid removed if they’re found not to be looking for work under the Back to Work Plan which aims to bring 1.1 million people back into work.
The headline rates of national insurance for employees are being cut by 2 percentage points, impacting about 27 million workers.
Employees earning more than £12,570 a year currently pay 12% national insurance on pay up to £50,270. That will fall to 10%.
The cut will be in effect from 6 January.
For the self-employed, the chancellor said he is making reforms to the way national insurance is paid to save around 2 million people an average of £350 per year.
He said he is abolishing Class 2 national insurance – which he says saves £192 a year – for the self-employed.
Meanwhile, Class 4 national insurance will be cut from 9% to 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270.
State pension payments are to rise by 8.5% to £221.20 a week, worth almost an extra £900 a year. The triple lock will be “honoured in full”.
Work to establish a pension pot for life scheme will be begin, giving workers the option to nominate the fund their employer pays into, which can follow them as they move throughout their working life.
A further £500m will be invested over the next two years to fund further “innovation centres to help make us an AI powerhouse”, Mr Hunt said.
Moreover, a “new, simplified” tax relief for research and development will combine the existing R&D Expenditure Credit and SME schemes.
Through that merged scheme, Mr Hunt said he will also cut the rate at which loss-making companies are taxed from 25% to 19%.
The full expensing scheme – currently due to expire in 2026 – will be made permanent.
This allows firms to write off the entire cost of spending on new machinery and equipment, while also saving 25p from every pound spent on other types of investment.
The 75% discount on business rates – the tax paid on non-domestic properties – of up to £110,000 for firms in retail, hospitality and leisure will be extended for another year.
Mr Hunt claims this will save the average independent pub more than £12,800 next year.
All alcohol duty will be frozen until August. That means no increase in duty on beer, cider, wine or spirits.
Mr Hunt pledged to provide £7m to tackle antisemitism in schools and universities. To be repeated is a £3m uplift to Jewish organisation Community Security Trust.
In an attempt to cut the time it takes for planning applications to be granted for businesses, the chancellor said he will allow local authorities to recover the full costs of major business planning applications if they meet guaranteed faster timelines.
But if they fail, businesses will be refunded in full and have their planning application processed free of charge in what the chancellor described as a “prompt service or your money back” promise.
People living closest to new pylons and electricity substations will receive up to £10,000 off their bills over 10 years.
The government will meet its NATO commitment of spending 2% of gross domestic product (GDP), the measure of everything produced in the economy, on defence.
The chancellor also said he will also extend national insurance relief for employers of eligible veterans for another year. This will provide £10m to support the Veterans’ Places, Pathways and People programme, he added.
Freeports and investment zones will be given 10 years of “financial incentives”, rather than five as currently planned.
There will also be a further three investment zones, Mr Hunt said, in the West Midlands, East Midlands and in Greater Manchester, while a second investment zone will also be set up in Wales.
PayPal says the US Securities and Exchange Commission has abandoned its investigation into the payment giant’s US-dollar stablecoin.
PayPal said in an April 29 regulatory filing that the SEC concluded its investigation into PayPal USD (PYUSD) and wouldn’t be taking any action.
The company said it received a subpoena from the SEC’s Division of Enforcement over its stablecoin in November 2023.
“The subpoena requests the production of documents. We are cooperating with the SEC in connection with this request,” PayPal stated at the time.
In its latest filing, the firm said the SEC notified it in February that the agency “was closing this inquiry without enforcement action.”
PayPal has said its stablecoin is 100% redeemable for US dollars and “fully backed” by dollar deposits, including short-term treasuries and cash equivalents.
However, the stablecoin has struggled to gain momentum in a crowded market dominated by rivals Tether and Circle. PYUSD has a market capitalization of just $880 million, less than 1% of Tether’s (USDT) $148.5 billion.
PayPal’s stablecoin has seen better growth this year with a 75% increase in PYUSD circulating supply since the beginning of 2025, according to CoinGecko. It remains down 14% from its peak supply of just over $1 billion in August 2024.
Earnings on PYUSD, Coinbase partnership
That growth could be bolstered by a company announcement on April 23 introducing rewards for PYUSD in a new loyalty offering that will enable US users to earn 3.7% annually for holding the asset on the platform.
Meanwhile, on April 24, PayPal announced a partnership with Coinbase to increase the adoption of PYUSD.
“We are excited to drive new, exciting, and innovative use cases together with Coinbase and the entire cryptocurrency community, putting PYUSD at the center,” said Alex Chriss, PayPal President and CEO.
Related: PayPal to offer 3.7% yield on stablecoin balances: Report
The payments giant also reported robust first-quarter earnings and the completion of significant share repurchase activities.
The firm beat Wall Street estimates, earning $1.33 per share in the first quarter, topping analyst expectations of $1.16. Revenue rose 1% from a year before to $7.8 billion.
Magazine: Bitcoin $100K hopes on ice, SBF’s mysterious prison move: Hodler’s Digest
Asset manager BlackRock has filed to create digital ledger technology shares from one of the firm’s money market funds, which will leverage blockchain technology to maintain a mirror record of share ownership for investors.
The DLT shares will track BlackRock’s BLF Treasury Trust Fund (TTTXX), which may only be purchased from BlackRock Advisors and The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), the firm said in its April 29 Form N-1A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The money market fund holds over $150 million worth of assets, invested almost entirely in US Treasury bills and cash.
BlackRock said that the shares “are expected to be purchased and held through BNY, which intends to use blockchain technology to maintain a mirror record of share ownership for its customers.”
Unlike the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), DLT shares won’t be tokenized but will instead be used as a transparency tool to verify ownership.
BlackRock will continue to maintain traditional book-entry records as the official ownership ledger.
BlackRock didn’t propose a ticker or set a management fee for the DLT shares in its filing.
A minimum initial investment of $3 million worth of DLT is required for institutions seeking to purchase the digital shares.
BlackRock follows Fidelity’s March 21 filing to list an Ethereum-based OnChain share class, which seeks to track the Fidelity Treasury Digital Fund (FYHXX) — an $80 million fund consisting almost entirely of US Treasury bills.
While the OnChain share class filing is pending regulatory approval, Fidelity expects it to take effect on May 30.
Wall Street heavyweights continue to explore blockchain use cases
Asset managers have increasingly turned to blockchain to tokenize Treasury bills, bonds and private credit over the past few years.
Related: BlackRock Bitcoin ETF buys $970M in BTC as inflows surge, boost market
The treasury tokenization market is currently valued at $6.16 billion, led by BlackRock’s BUIDL at $2.55 billion, while the Franklin Templeton-issued Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund (BENJI) secures over $700 million worth of real-world assets, according to rwa.xyz.
Ethereum remains the chain of choice for tokenizing treasury assets, and currently houses over $4.55 billion worth, while the Stellar network and Solana round out the top three at $474.9 million and $274.5 million, respectively.
The potential of RWA tokenization has also been championed by BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, who believes the technology could revolutionize investing.
Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control can’t restore or reimpose sanctions against the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash, a US federal court has ruled.
Austin federal court judge Robert Pitman said in an April 28 judgment that OFAC’s sanctions on Tornado Cash were unlawful and that the agency was “permanently enjoined from enforcing” sanctions.
Tornado Cash users led by Joseph Van Loon had sued the Treasury, arguing that OFAC’s addition of the platform’s smart contract addresses to its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list was “not in accordance with law.”
OFAC had sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022, accusing the protocol of helping launder crypto stolen by the North Korean hacking collective, the Lazarus Group.
The agency dropped the platform from the sanctions list on March 21 and argued that the matter was “moot” after a court ruled in favor of Tornado Cash in January.
This latest amended ruling prevents OFAC from re-sanctioning Tornado Cash or putting it back on the blacklist.
Initially, the court denied a motion for partial summary judgment and granted in favour of the Treasury. However, the Fifth Circuit reversed the decision and instructed the lower court to grant partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs, which led to the sanctions being revoked.
In March, the Treasury argued there was no need for a final court judgment in the lawsuit.
Crypto body petitions White House over Tornado Cash
On April 28, the DeFi Education Fund petitioned White House crypto czar David Sacks to have prosecutors drop charges against Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm.
Related: Samourai Wallet, feds ask for time to mull dropping crypto mixer case
Storm was charged in August 2023 with helping launder over $1 billion in crypto through the protocol, and his trial is still set for July.
The group said that the Department of Justice was attempting to hold software developers criminally liable for how others use their code, which they argued was “not only absurd in principle, but it sets a precedent that potentially chills all crypto development in the United States.”
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