The Autumn Budget 2021 was announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak on the 27th of October. It included reform on alcohol duty, changes to business rates and an increase in the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage ...
Fuel duty and alcohol duty
The Chancellor announced significant changes to both fuel duty and alcohol duty. Fuel duty is frozen at 57.95p per litre for 2022/23 because of the high cost of living for households across the county.
Alcohol duty has been simplified, with drinks being taxed in proportion to the amount of alcohol they contain. This should make the system far fairer and should result in product innovation by makes. Duty rates on draft beer and cider have been cut by 5% to help pubs recover from the pandemic.
Business Rates
Business rates also saw changes with the Chancellor unveiling a temporary business rate relief in England for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure premises. Again, this is designed to make business rates fairer and more responsive.
Research and Development
R&D investments will increase to record levels by 2024/25. Combined with R&D tax reliefs, the Government will modernise and refocus R&D support as a proportion of GDP.
National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage
The Government will increase the NLW to £9.50 per hour from the 1st of April 2022. The NMW follows suit at £9.18. In addition, the taper rate has been reduced for Universal Credit from 63% to 55% to help low-income families keep more of their earnings.
Devolved Nations
All the devolved nations get extra funding. Scotland benefits from an additional £4.6 billion per year, Wales received an extra £2.5 billion, and Northern Ireland gets £1.6 billion more.
Levelling Up
The Levelling Up fund is a flagship of the Tory Government, and the Chancellor committed £1.7 billion for local investment, and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund gets £2.6 billion to help people get into jobs.
If you feel inspired to find out more about anything I've said here, do call me on 01908 774320 or leave a comment below and I'll be in touch as soon as I can.