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Chancellor Rachel Reeves has finally unveiled the budget for 2024. Here are the key points:

This page is being updated, refresh to see more as it’s announced.

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Taxes

• The budget raises taxes by £40bn.

National Insurance contributions for employers (not employees) will increase by 1.2 percentage points to 15% from April 2025.

The point at which employers start paying NI will fall from £9,100 a year to £5,000 a year. This will raise £25bn per year.

• The lower rate of capital gains tax (CGT) on the sale of assets will increase from 10% to 18%. The higher rate will go from 18% to 24%. CGT on the sale of residential property will also increase from 18% to 24%.

Tax thresholds will rise, meaning the point at which people pay higher taxes will be increased. These tax bands had been frozen. But this freeze will end in 2028 and the bands will increase at the rate of inflation.

• The freeze on inheritance tax will continue for a further two years until 2030. This means the first £325,000 can be inherited tax-free, rising to £500,000 if the estate is passed to direct descendants, and £1m if it’s passed to a surviving spouse or civil partner.

• From tomorrow the stamp duty surcharge for second homes, or ‘higher rate for additional dwellings’, will increase by two percentage points to 5%.

Benefits

• Health and employment services for people who are disabled and long-term sick will get £240m in funding.

• The minimum wage for people 21 and over will rise by 6.7% to £12.21 an hour. This is the equivalent of £1,400 a year for a full-time worker. Workers aged 18 to 20 will see their minimum wage increase by 16.3% to £10 an hour.

• People will now be able to earn £10,000 or more while claiming Carers Allowance. This will mean an extra £81.90 for those newly eligible.

• The household support fund will receive £1bn to help those in financial hardship with the cost of essentials.

• A new fair repayment rate will mean Universal Credit claimants who have been accidentally overpaid will only have to pay back 15% of their allowance each month, falling from 25%. This means a gain of around £420 a year for roughly 1.2 million of the poorest households.

• Businesses will get an increase in employment allowance, which will mean 65,000 employers won’t pay any National Insurance at all next year with the allowance growing from £5,000 to £10,500. This will mean more than a million businesses will pay the same or less than they did previously.

Business rates relief will fall from the current 75% down to 45% for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses.

NHS / Health

• The day-to-day NHS budget will increase by £22.6bn. There will also be a further £3.1bn investment in its capital budget.

• This will facilitate 40,000 extra hospital appointments and procedures every week and will include £1.5bn for new hospital beds.

Social care

• Local government will receive funding worth “at least” £600m for social care.

Housing

• An investment of £5bn in housing, which will increase the affordable homes programme to a budget of £3.1bn.

• In addition, £1bn will be spent on the removal of dangerous cladding, implementing the findings of the Grenfell inquiry.

Fuel duty

Fuel duty will be frozen this year and next, with the existing 5p cut maintained.

Alcohol duty

• A cut to draft alcohol duty of 1.7%, which could make drinks cheaper by 1p.

• The tax on tobacco will rise at the rate of inflation plus an additional 2%. There will also be an extra 10% on rolling tobacco.

• There will be a new flat rate duty on all vaping liquid from next October.

Schools / education

• VAT will be introduced on private school fees from January 2025 and business rates relief for private schools will be removed from April 2025.

• Some 500 state schools that are old and not fit for purpose will be rebuilt at a total cost of £1.4bn. There will be an extra £300m for school maintenance each year, which will cover dealing with RAC concerns.

• The budget for free school breakfast clubs will be tripled to £30m, in 2025 and 2026. The core budget for schools will also rise by £2.3bn next year.

• An investment of £300m for further education and £1bn for children with special educational needs (SEN).

Transport

• The HS2 rail link between Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham has been confirmed. Tunnelling work will also begin on extending the line to London Euston.

• Air passenger duty on private jets will rise by 50%, which is the equivalent of £450 per passenger.

Windfall taxes

• The energy profits levy on oil and gas companies will increase to 38% until March 2030.

Defence

• The annual defence budget will fall below 2.5% of GDP next year – with an increase of £2.9bn for the Ministry of Defence.

• A commitment of £3bn a year for Ukraine for “as long as it takes”.

Economy

Public finances will be in surplus, rather than in deficit, by the 2027-2028 financial year. The government claims this means reaching stability two years earlier than planned.

• The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicts UK GDP growth to be 1.1% in 2024, 2.0% in 2025, 1.85% in 2026, 1.5% in 2027, 1.5% in 2028, 1.6% in 2029.

• The OBR expects public sector net borrowing to be £105.6bn in 2025-26, £88.5bn in 2026-27, £72.2bn in 2027-28, £71.9bn in 2028-29 and £70.6bn in 2029-30.

• Consumer price index (CPI) inflation will hit 2.5% this year, according to OBR forecasts. Next year it will rise to 2.6% before falling to 2.3% in 2026, 2.1% in 2027, 2.1% in 2028 and 2% in 2029. It’s the goal of the Treasury to bring inflation down to 2%. The Bank of England has raised interest rates to bring the rate of price rises to 2%.

The Budget

• The price of soft drinks will rise, with an increase to the drinks levy in line with inflation every year. Nearly £1bn a year will be raised thanks to the measure.

• All government departments will have their budgets reduced by 2% next year. This will be achieved by “using technology more effectively and joining up services across government”.

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Music video streamer ROXi lands backing from US broadcasters

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Music video streamer ROXi lands backing from US broadcasters

A music video-streaming service whose shareholders include the U2 bassist Adam Clayton will this week announce that it has sealed a management buyout after months of talks.

Sky News understands that the assets of MagicWorks, which trades as ROXi, have been sold to a new company called FastStream Interactive (FSI), with backing from two major US-based broadcasters.

Sources said that Nasdaq-listed Sinclair and New York Stock Exchange-listed Gray Media were among the new shareholders in FSI, with the launch of new interactive TV Channels in the US expected to take place shortly.

The deal, which has involved raising millions of pounds of new equity from new and existing investors, has resulted in previous creditors of the business being repaid in full, according to the sources.

Its search for funding from the US was seen as vital because of the programme to roll out its FastScreen technology.

Founded in 2014, ROXi described itself as the world’s first ‘made-for-television’ service, allowing viewers to stream millions of songs and download hundreds of thousands of karaoke tracks.

Its broadcast channels allow viewers to skip through content in which they have no interest.

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Simon Cowell, Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams were among the prominent music industry figures who had previously been named as ROXi investors.

Financiers including Guy Hands and Jim Mellon are said to be part of the new ownership structure.

In response to an enquiry from Sky News, Rob Lewis, FSI chief executive, said: “The new technology, FastStream, will revolutionise broadcast TV.

“For the first time in history, consumers tuning into a normal TV channel will find they automatically start at the beginning of the programme, and that they are able to skip, pause or search, even though they are watching normal broadcast TV”.

Begbies Traynor Group, the professional services firm, and Rockefeller Capital Management advised on the process.

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Business

Concierge firm founded by Queen’s nephew hunts buyer

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Concierge firm founded by Queen's nephew hunts buyer

Quintessentially, the luxury concierge service founded by the Queen’s nephew, is in talks to find a buyer months after it warned of “material uncertainty” over its future.

Sky News has learned that the company, which was set up by Sir Ben Elliot and his business partners in 1999, is working with advisers on a process aimed at finding a new owner or investors.

City sources said this weekend that Quintessentially was already in discussions with prospective buyers and was anticipating receipt of a number of firm offers.

Sir Ben, the former Conservative Party co-chairman under Boris Johnson, owns a significant minority stake in the company.

The Quintessentially group operates a number of businesses, although its core activity remains the provision of lifestyle support to high net worth individuals including celebrities, royalty, and leading businesspeople.

It also counts major companies among its clients and offers services such as organising private jet flights and performances by top musicians.

The sale process is being overseen by a firm called Beyond, although further details, including the price that the business might fetch, were unclear on Saturday.

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One insider said parties who had been contacted by Beyond were being offered the option to buy a controlling interest in Quintessentially.

This could be implemented through a combination of the repayment of outstanding loans, an injection of new funding into the business, and the purchase of existing shareholders’ interests, they added.

Quintessentially’s founders, including Sir Ben, are thought to be keen to retain an equity interest in the company after any deal.

In January 2022, newspaper reports suggested that Quintessentially had been put up for sale with a valuation of £140m.

Deloitte, the accountancy firm, was charged with finding a buyer at the time but a transaction failed to materialise.

Sir Ben, who was knighted in Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list, turned to one of Quintessentially’s shareholders for financial support during the pandemic.

World Fuel Services, an energy and aviation services company, is owed £15.5m as well as £3.5m in accrued interest, according to one person close to the process.

The loan is said to include a warrant to convert it into equity upon repayment.

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Quintessentially does not disclose the number or identities of many of its clients, although it said in annual accounts filed at Companies House in January that it had increased turnover to £29.6m in the year to 30 April 2024.

The accounts suggested the company was seeing growth in demand from clients internationally.

“During the last year, we have not only renewed important corporate contracts like Mastercard, but have also expanded by adding new corporate clients like Swiss4 in the UK, R360 in India, and Visa in the Middle East and South America,” they said.

In its experiences and events division, it won a contract to work with the Red Sea Film Festival and to provide corporate concierge services to the Saudi Premier League.

It added that Allianz, the German insurer, BMW, and South African lender Standard Bank were among other clients with which it had signed contracts.

The accounts included the warning of a “risk that the pace and level at which business returns could be materially less than forecast, requiring the group and company to obtain external funding which may not be forthcoming and therefore this creates material uncertainty that may cast ultimately cast doubt about the … ability to continue as a going concern”.

This weekend, a Quintessentially spokesman declined to comment on the sale process.

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Superstar Adele joins backers of music royalties platform Audoo

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Superstar Adele joins backers of music royalties platform Audoo

Adele, the Grammy award-winning artist, has joined the list of music superstars investing in Audoo, a music technology company which helps artists to receive fairer royalty payments.

Sky News has learnt that the British musician and Adam Clayton, the U2 bassist, have injected money into Audoo as part of a £7m funding round.

The pair join Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney and ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus as shareholders in the company.

Changes to Audoo’s share register were filed at Companies House in recent days.

Audoo, which was established by former musician Ryan Edwards, is trying to address the perennial issue of public performance royalties, in order to ensure musicians are rewarded when their work is played in public venues.

Mr Edwards is reported to have been motivated to set up the company after hearing his own music played at football stadia and in bars, without any payment for it.

Estimates suggest that artists lose out on billions of dollars of unaccounted royalties each year.

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London-based Audoo uses a monitoring device – which it calls an Audio Meter – to recognise songs played in public venues, and which is said to have a 99% success rate.

It has struck what it describes as industry-first partnerships with organisations including the music licensing company PPL/PRS to track and report songs played in public performance locations such as cafes, hair salons, shops and gyms.

“At Audoo, we’re incredibly proud of the continued support we’re receiving as we work to make music royalties fairer and more transparent for artists and rights-holders around the world through our pioneering technology,” Mr Edwards told Sky News in a statement on Friday.

“We have successfully reached £7m in our latest funding round.

“This funding marks a pivotal moment for Audoo as we focus on our growth in North America and across Europe, bringing us closer to our mission of revolutionising the global royalty landscape.”

Sources said the new capital would be used partly to finance Audoo’s growth in the US.

The latest funding round takes the total amount of money raised by the company since its launch to more than $30m.

Mr Edwards has spoken of his desire to establish a major presence in Europe and the US because of their status as the world’s biggest recorded music markets.

Adele’s management company did not respond to an enquiry from Sky News.

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