I welcome the Chancellor's Spring Budget in which he set out the following measures:
- From 6th April 2024, Employee National Insurance will be cut from 10% to 8%, meaning employees on an average salary will receive an extra £450 in their pay packet. This comes on top of a 2% reduction in January this year. Combined with those changes, the average working person will be better off by over £900.
- Class 4 National Insurance contributions for the self-employed are also being reduced from 8% to 6%. Combined with the tax cuts announced in the Autumn Statement, the average self-employed person earning £28,000 a year, will be £650 better off.
- The Household Support Fund, which helps the most vulnerable households with the cost of living, is being extended to September 2024.
- New investment of £2.5 billion in the NHS to make progress on getting waiting lists down and £3.4 billion to improve productivity with improved technology and more efficient ways of working.
- £800 million to boost productivity across other public services, including the police.
- Raising the threshold from April 2024 for the High-Income Child Benefit Charge from £50,000 to £60,000, as well has halving the rate paid up to £80,000. This means a family with 2 children, whose higher earner has an income of £55,000, will gain around £1,109.
- Protecting nurseries and preschools from rising costs. For the next two years the hourly rate providers are paid to deliver the free hours offer for children aged 9 months to 4 years, will increase in line with the metric used at the Spring Budget 2023. This will mean nursery and preschool staff get the wage increases they deserve and give nurseries certainty to invest and expand.
- £200 million extension to the Growth Guarantee Scheme to help small and medium-sized businesses to invest and grow.
- Increasing the VAT registration threshold from £85,000 to £90,000 which will take around 28,000 small businesses out of paying VAT altogether.
- Freezing fuel duty for the fourteenth consecutive year.
- Extending the freeze on alcohol duty.
- Making our tax system fairer with a simpler residency-based system. Anyone who has been a tax resident in the UK for more than four years will pay UK tax on any foreign income and gains, as is the case for all other UK residents.