The Spring Budget 2024 was delivered by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt today (Wednesday 6th March 2024).
Nusrat Ghani, MP for Wealden, welcomes the Government’s Spring Budget for 2024, which cuts taxes for working people and supports people in Wealden.
Since the beginning of 2023, inflation has fallen from 11.1% to 4.0%, the economy has performed better than forecast, wages are rising, mortgage rates are starting to come down, the economy has outperformed European neighbours and debt is on track to fall as a share of the economy.
The 2023 Autumn Statement and 2024 Spring Budget together have delivered NICs cuts totalling £20 billion benefiting the average worker by over £900.
Click on the following link to read the Spring Budget in full: Spring Budget 2024
The 2024 Spring Budget will:
👉🏽 Cut taxes for 27 million working people from April, by cutting the main rate of employee NICs to 8 per cent, delivering a tax cut to National Insurance worth over £900 a year for the average worker on £35,400. This will help over 4.1 million workers in the South East by over £738 a year.
👉🏽 Cut taxes for two million of the self-employed, by cutting the main rate of Class 4 NICs from nine per cent to six per cent. Combined with the tax cuts for the self-employed at the Autumn Statement, this is a tax cut of around £650 for an average self-employed person earning £28,000 a year.
👉🏽 High Income Child Benefit Charge changes by raising the threshold and halving the rate at which Child Benefit is withdrawn, benefiting half a million families by an average of £1,260.
👉🏽 Uprate the basic state pension, the new state pension and pension credit standard minimum guarantee by 8.5 per cent in April 2024.
👉🏽 Freeze alcohol duty, alleviating pressure on the hospitality sector. This will support over 11,000 venues in the South East, backing the local economy and driving costs down for businesses.
👉🏽 Maintain the 5p cut to fuel duty and freeze rates for the fourteenth consecutive year, helping keep motoring costs down - a £3.1 billion tax cut for drivers.
👉🏽 Cut Capital Gains Tax on residential property sales, encouraging those who want to sell their second homes and buy to lets to make more houses available for families.
👉🏽 Increase the VAT registration threshold for small businesses for the first time since 2017, raising it from £85,000 to £90,000.
👉🏽 Support and reform the NHS with £2.45 billion for next year and a new £3.4 billion productivity plan, saving money, freeing up clinicians’ time to focus on patients, and cut wait times.
👉🏽 Extend the Household Support Fund to support households with the cost of essentials such as food and utilities, with an additional £500 million (including Barnett impact) to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund in England from April to September.
👉🏽 Reform our tax system - ensuring those with the broadest shoulders contribute a bit more.
👉🏽 Reduce debt, with overall debt beginning to fall next year and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasting we will meet our fiscal rule to have debt falling as a share of the economy.
Building on cost of living support announced at the Autumn Statement 2023, sticking to the plan to build a brighter future for families across the country by:
- Boosting the National Living Wage to record levels: £11.44 an hour. From 1 April 2024, we will deliver a 9.8 per cent increase to the National Living Wage, benefiting 2.7 million workers, increasing the pay of a full-time worker on the NLW by over £1,800.
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Boosting pensions, in line with our Triple Lock, by 8.5 per cent, ensuring dignity in older age for those who have worked their entire lives. We also provide targeted support for those struggling with energy costs, through schemes such as the Warm Home Discount and the Winter Fuel and Cold Weather payments.
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Increasing all working age benefits in full by 6.7 per cent, supporting 5.5 million households who receive Universal Credit – an average of £470 in 2024-25. We will uprate all working age benefits in full, by September 2023 CPI of 6.7 per cent, in 2024-25. This is 3.0 percentage points higher than forecasted earnings for 2024-25 and will help support the most vulnerable whilst inflation continues to fall.
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Increasing Local Housing Allowance rates, meaning 1.6 million families will on average be £800 better off in 2024-25. We will do the right thing and support the poorest with their housing costs by raising the Local Housing Allowance rate to cover the lower 30 per cent of local rents in April 2024.