Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveils Labour’s first budget for 14 years

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has today unveiled Labour’s first budget for 14 years in the Houses of Parliament.

Reeves says Britain inherited broken public finances and broken public services, and that the British people can see it in long NHS waiting lists, children sitting in crumbling schools, rivers filled with polluted waste, criminals not being punished and crimes not being investigated. With an emphasis on the Labour government having to fix the fourteen years of Tory failure, the key points and takes from the initial disclosure of the budget are :

• Budget will raise taxes by £40bn

• Government will provide £11.8bn for victims of the infected blood scandal, and £1.8bn to compensate victims of the Post Office scandal.

• She says today, the OBR say CPI inflation will average 2.5% this year, 2.6% in 2025, then 2.3% in 2026, 2.1% in 2027, 2.1% in 2028 and 2.0% in 2029.

• real GDP growth will be 1.1% in 2024, 2.0% in 2025, 1.8% in 2026, 1.5% in 2027, 1.5% in 2028, and 1.6% in 2029. 

• Every Govt department to make cuts of 2% by 2025

• National Living Wage to be increased by 6.7% to £12.21 an hour

• 18-20 year olds increase National Living Wage by 16.3% to £10 an hour

• On the carers’ allowance, Reeves says it will increase from £81.90 per week to the equivalent of 16 hours at the National Living Wage per week.

• Capital gains tax increases to 18% on lower rate and 24% on higher rate

• employers’ National Insurance contributions will rise from 13.8% to 15%.