The NEN – North Edinburgh News

• Plan for stronger economy will reward hard work, putting £450 back into the pocket of the average worker earning £35,400 a year thanks to National Insurance tax cut from 12% to 10% for 27 million working people from January.
• Tax to be cut and simplified for 2 million of the self-employed, abolishing an entire class of NICs and cutting the rate of the NICs top rate from 9% to 8% – with an average total saving of around £350 for someone earning £28,000 a year.
• Biggest permanent tax cut in modern British history for businesses will help them invest for less and boost investment by £20 billion per year over the next decade.
• Triple lock maintained for pensioners, benefits to rise in line with inflation and Local Housing Allowance increased to continue supporting families with the cost-of-living.
  Government is making work pay.
• National Living Wage rise represents boost of £1,800 to the average annual earnings of a full-time worker, and the Back to Work Plan will help over a million people start, stay, and succeed in work while ensuring tougher consequences for those choosing not to.
• Great British pubs, breweries and distillers backed by freezing alcohol duty for six months to August 2024.
• Public finances in a better position than in March thanks to government action, with borrowing and debt as a share of the economy down on average across the next five years.
• Autumn Statement gets the economy growing, debt falling and helps return inflation to its 2% target – long-term decisions to build a brighter future.

Tax cuts for working people and British business headlined Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s ‘Autumn Statement for Growth’ yesterday.

Aimed at building a stronger and more resilient economy, the Chancellor set out a plan to unlock growth and productivity by boosting business investment by £20 billion a year, getting more people into work, and cutting tax for 29 million workers – the biggest tax cut on work since the 1980s.

With higher revenues resulting from stronger growth than previously projected and the pledge to halve inflation having been met, the government has stabilised the economy through taking sound decisions. As set out by the Prime Minister this week, the stronger outlook means taxes can now be cut in a serious, responsible way.

To that end, Mr Hunt announced that a 2 percentage point cut to Employee National Insurance from 12% to 10% will come into effect from January 2024.

For the average worker earning £35,400 a year, that amounts to an over £450 annual tax cut – almost immediately improving living standards for millions of people and rewarding hard-work as the government builds an economy for the future.

Taxes for the self-employed will also be cut and reformed. From April 2024, Class 4 NICs for the self-employed will be reduced from 9% to 8% and no self-employed person will have to pay Class 2 NICs, saving the average self-employed person on £28,200 a year £350 in 2024/25.

Taken together, this is a tax cut of over £9 billion per year and represents the largest ever cut to employee and self-employed National Insurance. The independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) says these reductions will lead to an additional 28,000 people entering work.

Cutting National Insurance will not lead to any change in NHS funding or pension payments. Services will remain unchanged and continue to be funded as they are now.

Businesses will also benefit from the biggest business tax cut in modern British history. As signalled at Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced permanent Full Expensing: Invest for Less for those investing in IT equipment, plant, and machinery.

Full Expensing: Invest for Less is an effective permanent tax cut of £11 billion a year, boosting business investment by £14 billion across the forecast period and helping to grow the economy.

With the tax cut now permanent, the UK will continue to have both the lowest headline corporation tax rate in the G7 and the most generous capital allowances in the OECD group of major advanced economies, such as the United States, Japan, South Korea and Germany.

Since the introduction of the super deduction – the predecessor to full expensing – in 2021, investment in the UK has grown the fastest in the G7.

To further ensure that work pays, Mr Hunt confirmed that the National Living Wage will increase by nearly 10% to £11.44 an hour from April 2024, the largest ever cash increase.

The Chancellor also reinforced the new £2.5 billion Back to Work Plan for those with long-term health conditions, disabilities and difficulties finding employment, which includes tough new sanctions for those who can work but choose not to.

The Chancellor also announced that the government will honour its commitment to the triple lock in full, with the state pension to increase by 8.5% in April in what is the second biggest ever cash increase. Universal Credit and other working age benefits will also be boosted by 6.7% in April, in line with September’s inflation figure as is convention.

Further action to help families includes increasing the Local Housing Allowance rate to cover the lowest 30% of rents from April – benefiting 1.6 million households with an average gain of £800 in 2024/25 – and an alcohol duty freeze to 1st August 2024, following common-sense changes of the duty system made possible by Brexit.

Measures today take the government’s total support for the cost-of-living between 2022-25 beyond the £100 billion mark, to an average of £3,700 per household.

Accompanying forecasts by the OBR confirm that today’s measures will make the economy permanently bigger, with growth every year of the forecast period. Borrowing and debt as a share of the economy are lower than in Spring this year and next year, with borrowing also lower on average across the forecast by comparison. They also confirm that inflation is expected to return to target in line with the Prime Minister’s economic priorities.

Tax

With inflation halved and debt forecast to fall, Mr Hunt delivered on the government’s commitment to cut taxes – rewarding and incentivising work as part of its long-term plan to grow the economy.

• The main rate of Employee National Insurance will be cut by 2 percentage points from 12% to 10%, coming into effect from January 2024 – delivering the benefit of a tax cut quickly for 27 million workers.
• The combined rate of income tax and National Insurance for employees paying the basic rate of tax will therefore fall from 32% to 30% – the lowest combined basic rate since the 1980s.
• The rate of Class 4 NICs on all earnings between £12,570 and £50,270 will be cut by 1p, from 9% to 8% from April 2024.
• The weekly Class 2 NICs – the flat rate compulsory charge which is currently £3.45 paid by self-employed people earning more than £12,570 – will effectively be abolished, with no-one required to pay from April 2024. Access to contributory benefits will be maintained and those currently paying voluntarily will still be able to do so at the same rate.
  The cuts to Class 4 and Class 2 together amount to a tax cut of £350 a year for the average self-employed person on £28,200, with around 2 million individuals to benefit.

Business

Measures to back British businesses big and small will remove barriers to investment and help to bridge the productivity gap between the UK and its G7 peers – unlocking £20 billion extra business investment per year over the next decade.

• Permanent Full Expensing will create the certainty that businesses need to confidently invest for less. A company can now permanently claim 100% capital allowances on qualifying main rate plant and machinery investments, meaning that for every pound invested its taxes are cut by up to 25p.
• A business rates support package worth £4.3 billion over the next 5 years will help high streets and protect those small businesses that are the backbones of communities. This includes a rollover of 75% Retail, Hospitality and Leisure relief for 230,000 properties and a freeze to the small business multiplier, which will protect around 90% of ratepayers for a fourth consecutive year.
• Pension reforms, including through establishing a new Growth Fund within the British Business Bank, will help unlock an extra £75 billion of financing for high-growth companies by 2030 while providing an extra £1,000 a year in retirement for the average earner saving from 18.
• SMEs will be supported with tougher regulation on late payers to improve prompt payments, the expansion of Made Smarter in Great Britain and continued funding for Help to Grow.
• The existing R&D Expenditure Credit and Small and Medium Enterprise Scheme will be merged from April 2024, simplifying the system and boosting innovation in the UK. 
• The rate at which loss-making companies are taxed within the merged scheme will be reduced from 25% to 19%, and the threshold for additional support for R&D intensive loss-making SMEs will be lowered to 30%, benefiting a further 5,000 SMEs.
• The Climate Change Agreement Scheme will be extended, giving energy intensive businesses like steel, ceramics and breweries around £300 million of tax relief every year until 2033 to encourage investment in energy efficiency and support the Net Zero transition.

Work and welfare reform

Mr Hunt set out steps to reward work, help make work pay, and reform welfare in recognition of the need to expand the workforce and get those out of work back into work to deliver growth.

The OBR expect that the measures announced at Autumn Statement will support a further 78,000 people into work by 2028-29, on top of the 110,000 resulting from action taken at Spring Budget.

• From 1 April 2024, the National Living Wage will increase by 9.8% to £11.44 an hour for eligible workers. For the first time this will include 21- and 22-year-olds. This represents an increase of over £1,800 to the annual earnings of a full-time worker on the NLW and is expected to benefit over 2.7 million low paid workers.
• The government will also substantially increase the National Minimum Wage rates for young people and apprentices: for people aged 18-20 by 14.8% to £8.60 an hour, for 16-17 year olds and apprentices by 21.2% to £6.40 an hour.
• The government is reforming the Work Capability Assessment to ensure that people who can work are supported to do so via the welfare system. Changes to the activities and descriptors will better reflect the greater flexibility and reasonable adjustments now available in the world of work, preventing some individuals from being deemed not fit for work and ensuring they will be better supported into employment.
• The boosting of four key programmes – NHS Talking Therapies, Individual Placement and Support, Restart and Universal Support – will benefit up to 1.1 million people over the next five years.
• The government is exploring reforms of the fit note process to provide individuals whose health affects their ability to work with easy and rapid access to specialised work and health support.
• Mandatory work placements will boost skills and employability for those who have not found a job after 18 months of intensive support. Those who choose not to engage with the work search process for six months will have their claims closed and benefits stopped.

Infrastructure and levelling up

The Chancellor unveiled a raft of supply-side measures and funding packages to benefit businesses and local communities.

• £4.5 billion of funding for British manufacturers in the high-growth industries of the future, including £960 million earmarked for the Green Industries Growth Accelerator to support clean energy.
• The government has published its full response to the Winser review and Connections Action Plan, which will cut grid access times for larger projects by half, halve the time to build major grid upgrades and offer up to £10,000 off electricity bills over 10 years for those living closest to new transmission infrastructure.
• Three advanced manufacturing Investment Zones will be established in Greater Manchester, East Midlands, and West Midlands – together generating £3.4 billion of private investment and creating 65,000 high-quality jobs within the next decade.
• The Investment Zones programme and freeport tax reliefs will be extended from 5 years to 10 years, and a new £150 million Investment Opportunity Fund will support Investment Zones and Freeports to secure specific business investment opportunities.
• Four new devolution deals across England have been agreed. Mayoral deals with Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire, and non-mayoral deals with Lancashire and Cornwall, will boost investment right across the country and deliver on the Prime Minister’s commitment to levelling-up.
• £500 million of funding over the next two years will help establish two more Compute innovation centres, supporting the development of artificial intelligence as a growth opportunity for Britain.
• The life sciences will also be supported as one of the Chancellor’s key-growth sectors, with £20 million to speed up the development of new dementia treatments coming as part of the government’s full response to the O’Shaughnessy Review of commercial clinical trials in the UK.
• To prioritise those who want to invest in the UK’s future, the government has accepted in principle the headline recommendations of Lord Harrington’s review into increasing foreign direct investment. This includes additional resource for the Office for Investment, allowing it to deepen its world-class concierge offer to strategically important investors.

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said: ““This is an Autumn Statement to support hard working families and grow our country’s economy. It is great news for Scotland.

“The National Insurance cut and increase in the National Living Wage will mean a pay boost for millions of workers right across Scotland. We have honoured the pensions triple lock, meaning pensioners will get a £900 a year increase.

“Vital new support for Scottish businesses will ensure we get growth back into our economy.

“The Chancellor confirmed more than £200 million of new, direct UK Government investment in exciting projects across Scotland, which will create jobs, boost growth and transform communities.

“Plus, there will be an additional £545 million in Barnett Consequentials for the Scottish Government, on top of their record block grant.

“There is a lot to cheer about, not least the duty freeze on spirits to support Scotland’s biggest export industry.”

Rain Newton-Smith, Chief Executive, Confederation of British Industry said: “With tough decisions to be made, the Chancellor was right to prioritise ‘game-changing’ interventions that will fire the economy.

“While the move on National Insurance will give hard-pressed households some much needed breathing room, making full capital expensing a permanent feature of the tax system can be transformational for accelerating growth and improving living standards in the long-term.

“Helping firms to unleash pent-up investment is critical to getting momentum into the economy. Making full expensing permanent will give firms the stability they need to press on with decisions on investment whilst keeping the UK at the top table internationally for investment incentives.

“Moves to speed up planning and grid connectivity should also bolster business confidence to invest in high growth areas like green technologies, renewable energy and advanced manufacturing.”

Eve Williams, General Manager, eBay UK said: “The hundreds of thousands of UK small businesses who use eBay and other online marketplaces will warmly welcome the Chancellor’s cuts in national insurance, more support for the self-employed, as well as the decision to make permanent full expensing. 

“There are enormous productivity gains to be had from encouraging the long tail of Britain’s SMEs to invest in existing digital technologies.  And given that around half of our online businesses also trade offline, they will benefit hugely from the measures on business rates for retail as well as freezing the business rate multiplier.”

Kate Nicholls, Chief Executive, UKHospitality said: “The Chancellor has brought forward a significant package of business rates measures that will help hospitality businesses across the country. UKHospitality led the calls for Government to extend relief and take action on the multiplier and I’m delighted the Chancellor has acted on our asks.

“Reforms to the planning system to drive quicker approvals will remove a significant barrier to business investment. This type of reform to reward the best performing local planning authorities is exactly the type of change we have been suggesting to drive growth in hospitality.

“We’re also pleased that the Chancellor has acted on our proposal and frozen alcohol duty until August next year to support our supply chain.

“The reduction in National Insurance for employees will put more money in people’s pockets and provide a boost to hospitality in the New Year, often a challenging time for the sector.”

Responding to the freeze in alcohol duty until 1 August 2024

Nuno Teles, Managing Director, Diageo GB said: “Today we raise a glass to the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, who have listened to the industry’s plea for support and decided to back our homegrown sector, that employs so many people across the UK.

“Drinkers and pub-goers across the country now have even more reason to celebrate this festive season. Cheers, Chancellor!”

Responding to the announcement of £7million of funding to tackle antisemitism

Mark Gardiner, Chief Executive, Community Security Trust (CST) said: “The commitment to fund education to tackle antisemitism in universities and schools, alongside the promise to continue the increase in funding for security guarding in the Jewish community, is not just a welcome, concrete contribution to the fight against antisemitism: it sends an important and powerful message to the Jewish community that we have the sympathy and support of government in this struggle.

“We are grateful for the Chancellor for this commitment and we will work with government and communal partners to ensure it is put to effective use.”

Responding to the protection of the Triple lock

Caroline Abrahams, Influencing Director, Age UK said: “We’re pleased and relieved the Government kept its promise to older people to honour the Triple Lock.  

“For the 4.2 million older people who recently cut back on food and groceries to make ends meet, having a State Pension that delivers the basics in life is essential.

“Today’s decision also crucially makes is more likely that older people will keep their homes adequately warm this winter, with less fear of facing an energy bill they simply cannot afford to pay come the spring.”

Responding to the support for Veterans

Anna Wright, Chief Executive, the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust said: “We are delighted by Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement of an additional £10 million to support the Veterans’ Places, People and Pathways programme.

“These projects have delivered significant work already to support our veterans, growing collaborative cross sector working and giving a more seamless interface between statutory and charity or not for profit support.

“They have great potential to help even more veterans, and further develop better, more inclusive local support and better coordination and communication that sustains into the future”

Autumn Statement offers ‘worst case scenario’ for Scotland

Deputy First Minister responds to announcements from Chancellor

The Autumn Statement delivered the ‘worst case scenario’ for Scotland’s finances and failed to live up to the challenges posed by the cost of living and climate crises, Deputy First Minister Shona Robison has said.

The statement failed to deliver the investment needed in services and infrastructure, Ms Robison said. While welcoming the increase in the statutory minimum wage, she said this did not go far enough and fell well short of the Real Living Wage of £12 an hour for 2024-25.

The Deputy First Minister said: ““Today’s Autumn Statement from the UK Government has delivered what is the worst case scenario for Scotland’s finances. Scotland needed a fair deal on investment for infrastructure, public services and pay deals – the UK Government has let Scotland down on every count.

“We needed investment in the services that people rely on and in infrastructure vital to the economy, but the Chancellor’s actions failed to live up to the challenges we are facing as a nation, while not doing enough to help those on the lowest incomes.

“The cut to National Insurance shows the UK Government has the wrong priorities at the wrong time, depriving public services of vital funding. Shockingly, the health funding announced today represents an increase of less than 0.06% to Scotland’s health budget in 2023-24 of £19.138 billion.

“The increases to the state pension and Local Housing Allowance are welcome, but the increase to the minimum wage falls well short of the Real Living Wage. Some of the measures for businesses are also positive, but they come in the face of UK growth having been projected downwards as a result of Brexit and the UK Government’s mismanagement of the economy.

“As global temperatures push ever higher, the Autumn Statement was a chance to fund efforts to cut the UK’s carbon emissions – but it did not. It’s not enough to say they support measures to encourage more renewable energy developments and expand the UK’s electricity grid need. It needs to be matched with funding to actually deliver and help us meet our net zero targets.

“We will now assess the full implications of today’s statement as we develop a Budget that meets the needs of the people of Scotland, in line with our missions of equality, community and opportunity.”

The Scottish Budget will be announced on 19 December.

TUC: Hunt’s Autumn Statement “is a plan for levelling the country down”

• Chancellor has confirmed “another round of punishing spending cuts to public services and investment”
• Cutting NI won’t make up for “13 continued “years of economic failure on living standards and growth”
• Growth forecasts revised down with real wages set to remain below 2008 level until 2028
• “The Conservatives have broken Britain. They cannot be trusted to fix it,” says TUC

Commenting on the Autumn Statement, TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said: “This is not a plan for rebuilding Britain. It’s a plan for levelling the country down.

“At a time when our schools and hospitals are crumbling – the Chancellor has confirmed another round of punishing and undeliverable spending cuts to public services and investment.

“Be in no doubt – if the Tories win the next election, even more austerity is on the way.

“Cutting national insurance won’t make up for 13 continued years of economic failure on wages and living standards.

“Jeremy Hunt has nothing to smile about when working people are on course for a 20-year real wage freeze.

“The Conservatives have broken Britain. They cannot be trusted to fix it.”

Responding to the 2023/24 Autumn Statement, SCVO Chief Executive Anna Fowlie, said: “I share the disappointment of other voluntary sector bodies that this week’s budget Autumn Statement did not recognise the essential services and support of voluntary organisations both in Scotland and across the UK.

“Our sector is a major employer, a partner in delivering public services, and a vital contributor to society and the economy.

“The last few years have been a period of significant change and upheaval for Scottish voluntary organisations, their staff and volunteers, and the people and communities they work with. Rising inflation and the resulting cost-of-living crisis and running costs crisis has strained sector finances and increased demand for the support and services many organisations provide, as demonstrated in our Third Sector Tracker.

“This crisis is not over. We welcome the increase in the National Living Wage which will offer some support to the lowest paid, but to meet the rising cost-of-living this needed to go further, lifting both the National Living Wage and the National Minimum Wage to at least Real Living Wage.

“Our sector is central to building a stronger economy and offers specialist support to those furthest from the labour market and should be included in these plans.

“To protect our sector’s essential contributions for the future, underfunding and a lack of inflation-based uplifts in grants and contracts needed to be addressed in this statement. As people and communities struggle through the largest reduction in household incomes since records began in the 1950s, our support will be needed more than ever.”