Chris Giles will be posting later. Meanwhile, you can watch the budget. Or read Alistair Darling’s speech.
New/amended policies:
- Winter fuel payment will be guaranteed for another year - £250 or £400 to be received by pensioners, paid for by closing tax loopholes
- No-one over 75 will pay tax on the first £10k of income, from next year
- Extra £4 per week for all children whatever the marital status of their parents
- Tax evasion: £0.5bn extra revenue expected annually from following measures, plus safeguard £4bn. Tax information exchange agreements with three additional countries (Liechtenstein already signed, expected to bring in £1bn) Dominica, Grenada and Belize – to be signed within a few days, “rather quicker than it’s taken the opposition to exchange information with the vice chairman of their party”
- Universities: extra one-off funding £270m 2010-11 through a University Modernisation Fund, to generate 20k more places especially in science and technology
- Set up £35m university enterprise capital fund
- Promises help for computer game sector, similar to steps for British film industry
- Global economy: “Partnership and not indifference.” Government can’t manufacture electric cars but can support these projects to take place in the UK e.g. Nissan announcement.
- Digital technology: UK can be the world leader. Access to high-speed broadband for all. 50p monthly landline duty will spread broadbank and unlock investment
- Energy: Infrastructure UK was set up last year. To deliver their recommendations, setting up a new Green Investment Bank controlling £2bn equity, half coming from private investment and half from asset sales such as Channel Tunnel rail link. Fund will focus on green transport and green energy, especially wind power. £60m on offer to ports helping manufacture of wind turbines. New inward investment expected.
- £100m for repairs to local roads, £285m for improvements to motorways, including expand capacity by allowing hard shoulder running
- High-speed rail link idea London-Birmingham and later to Scotland, to be taken forward
- Doubling entrepreneur relief to £2m. (Currently first £1m of lifetime gains taxed at 10 per cent instead of usual 18 per cent.) Not increasing main rate of capital gains tax.
- Will double annual investment allowance for small businesses to £100k. Scrapping investment allowances to pay for an overall corporation tax makes “no sense at all” – banks would get windfall profit.
- Tax help for SMEs: extend Time to Pay scheme for whole of next parliament; this helps businesses to spread tax payments.
- Business rates to be cut for one year from October, lower tax for 500k SMEs, of which 345k businesses will pay no rates at all
- Increase by 15% the number of central government contracts that go to SMEs
- New national investment corporation, “UK Finance for growth”, to oversee and streamline £4bn finance support for businesses, include new Capital Frowth Fund to provide private capital to fast-growing companies
- Boost competition: FSA will improve/speed up licensing for new banks
- New credit adjudicator service to fasttrack credit complaints by SMEs – will have legal powers to enforce judgements
- Small businesses’ access to finance: over next year, RBS and Lloyds will provide £94bn new business loans, over half to SMEs
- Sales of Tote, student loans and Dartford crossing will help to reduce debt
- Housing: from October, the most expensive properties will be excluded from calculations of housing benefit
- Public sector pay and pensions: senior civil servants’ pay bill to be reduced. December commitment to £4.4bn reduction in public sector pay by 2012-3 and pensions stands. Public pay settlements to be capped at 1 per cent from 2011 for two years.
- Details from departments today on the £11bn savings (from 2011) commitment made in December.
- £5bn in cuts identified in December to go ahead as planned
- Long-term, reduce number civil servants in London by a third, start by relocating 15k within 5 years
- Guarantees: NHS health checks every 5 years for over-40s; referral to cancer specialist within 2 weeks; extra Maths and English tuition for 7-11 year olds who fall behind; a place in education or training for 16-17 year olds; maintaining police officer numbers.
- £4bn reserved for Afghanistan
- Stick to spending plans for next year, 2.2 per cent increase.
- Inheritance tax threshold will be frozen for a further four years, this will help to pay for care for elderly
- Tobacco will rise today 1% above inflation, then by 2% in real terms till 2014
- Duties on wine, beer and spirits will rise as planned from midnight Sunday.
- Duty on cider – historically overlooked – will increase by 10 per cent from midnight Sunday. Specific strong ciders will be taxed appropriately
- Tax relief on pensions will be restricted from next year for those receiving > £130k pa
- Fifty per cent income rate tax band will come in next month for those > £150k
- For those earning >£100k, gradually remove the value of their personal allowances.
- 1p increase in national insurance will be effective April 2011 and will not affect anyone earning under £20k
- Cutting spending: too risky now, the recovery is already reducing debt more quickly than expected
- Public sector net borrowing now expected to be £11bn lower than initial forecast of £178bn, 54 per cent of GDP, although it will rise to 75 per cent by 2014 before falling again.
- Fuel duty: instead of the current plan, duty will rise by 1p in April, then 1p October, 1p in January. By this time, inflation is expected to be back to 2 per cent.
- Savings: annual ISA limit raised from £7,200 to £10,200 from next month (half of which can be saved in cash), and will rise in line with inflation infuture
- Double stamp duty limit from £175k to £250k from midnight tonight, so 9 in 10 first time buyers will pay no stamp duty, funded through an increase to 5 per cent of stamp duty on properties sold for >£1m
- Extend young person labour guarantee from March 2011 to 2012, so “no-one under 24 will need to be out of work for more than six months”
- Retirement: Considering scrapping 65-year-old statutory retirement age
- Tax credits: reduce minimum hours required to work, to be eligible for tax credits for over 60s
- Personal banking: combat financial exclusion; 1m more people should have access to basic bank accounts
- On banks: International systemic tax on banks must be brought forward ‘quickly’.
- On banks: capital and liquidity measures must be in place by the end of the year. Remuneration rules and cross-border resolution must also be tackled.
- Small businesses: £2.5bn one-off growth package for small businesses, funded partly from extra proceeds from banker bonus tax, which raised £2bn
