This morning (17 November) the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, unveiled the contents of the Government's Autumn Statement. I have summarised the main measures below:

Taxation and wages

• The National Living Wage will be increased by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour, giving a full-time worker a pay rise of over £1,600 a year, benefitting 2 million of the lowest paid workers.
• Based around the principle of fairness, all taxpayers will be asked to contribute but those with the broadest shoulders will be asked to contribute a greater share.
• The threshold at which higher earners start to pay the 45p rate will be reduced from £150,000 to £125,140.
• Income tax personal allowance and higher rate thresholds frozen for further two years, until April 2028.
• Main National Insurance and inheritance tax thresholds also frozen for further two years, until April 2028.
• Tax-free allowances for dividend and capital gains tax also due to be cut next year and in 2024.
• The most profitable businesses with the broadest shoulders will also be asked to bear more of the burden. The threshold for employer National Insurance contributions will be fixed until April 2028, but the Employment Allowance will continue to protect 40% of businesses from paying any NICS at all.

Pensions and working age benefits

• Working age benefits will rise by 10.1%, boosting the finances of millions of the poorest people in the UK.
• The Triple Lock for pensions will be protected, meaning pensioners will also get a rise in the State Pension and the Pension Credit in line with inflation.

Help with energy bills

• The Energy Price Guarantee, which is protecting households throughout this winter by capping typical energy bills at £2,500, will continue to provide support from April 2023 with the cap rising to £3,000.
• With prices forecast to remain elevated throughout next year, this equates to an average of £500 support for households in 2023-24.
• More than eight million households on means-tested benefits will receive a cost-of-living payment of £900 in instalments, with £300 to pensioners and £150 for people on disability benefits.
• To ensure businesses making extraordinary profits as a result of high energy prices also pay their fair share, from 1 January 2023 the Energy Profits Levy on oil and gas companies will increase from 25% to 35%, with the levy remaining in place until the end of March 2028, and a new, temporary 45% levy will be introduced for electricity generators.
• Together these measures will raise over £55 billion from this year until 2027-28.
• Sizewell C nuclear plant will go ahead, with the EDF contract to be signed at the end of the month, providing reliable, low-carbon power to the equivalent of 6 million homes for over 50 years.

Supporting small businesses and the high street

• The burden of business rates on businesses and the high street will be reduced through £13.6 billion of support over the next 5 years.
• This includes freezing the multipliers, increasing relief for retail, hospitality and leisure to 75%, and reforming transitional relief on the revaluation by exchequer funding the scheme and abolishing downward caps.
• This builds on the government’s existing commitment to reform the business rates system by delivering more frequent revaluations, which will ensure rates better reflect current market values.
• Further information on how the Government is providing Business Rates support here: https://www.huwmerriman.org.uk/business-rates-support

Investment in the NHS, social care, and education

• Funding of the NHS and social care is being increased by up to £8 billion in 2024-25.
• This will enable the NHS to take action to improve access to urgent and emergency care, get waiting times down, and will mean double the number of people can be released from hospital into care every day from 2024.
• The schools budget will receive £2.3 billion of additional funding in each of 2023-24 and 2024-25, enabling continued investment in high quality teaching and tutoring, and restoring 2010-levels of per-pupil funding in real terms.

Encouraging businesses to invest

• To support businesses to invest and grow, the Government is setting the Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) at its highest ever permanent level of £1 million from 1 April 2023.
• This amounts to full expensing for an estimated 99% of UK businesses, which means that those businesses can write off the cost of qualifying plant machinery investment in one go.
• A permanent increase provides businesses with stability and makes tax simpler for any business investing between £200,000 and £1 million.

Ensuring fiscal discipline

• To ensure fiscal discipline while providing support for the most vulnerable, the Chancellor has introduced two new fiscal rules, that the UK’s national debt must fall as a share of GDP by the fifth year of a rolling five-year period, and that public sector borrowing in the same year must be below 3% of GDP.
• Overall, the Autumn Statement improves public finances by £55 billion by 2027-28, and the OBR forecasts both of these rules to be met a year early in 2026-27.