The Autumn Budget: What Does It All Mean?

The Autumn Budget was released just last month in the UK. In it, Philip Hammond – the Chancellor of the Exchequer – gave an update on proposed spending plans and taxation to the House of Commons based on recent economic projections.

Understanding the Autumn Budget can be pretty confusing, so to help you out,  LAPP have compiled a guide on the basics of what money we have and where it’s going!

NHS

• The NHS’s funds will rise by £1.6bn, creating a total budget of £126bn in 2018-2019.
• It will also receive £900m more than previously planned in 2019-2020.
• £3.5bn between now and 2020 will go to building new facilities, undertaking repairs and modernising patient care. This money will come from surplus NHS land and buildings being sold off.
• The aim of these increases is to aid the NHS in its ability to cope with an increased demand for care.
• Three separate health think tanks and the Chief Executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens, have all warned that the NHS actually needs an injection of £4bn to effectively look after patients, underlining that these spending plans still aren’t enough.

Brexit

• To prepare for Brexit, an extra £3bn will be invested into the process over the next 2 years.
• £700m has also already been invested in preparations for the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union alongside the money proposed by this year’s Autumn Budget.

Housing

• It has been pledged that 300,000 new homes will be built each year by the mid-2020s (including loan guarantees of £44bn to be made available by the government to boost construction skills).
• Stamp duty will be abolished for first-time buyers, applicable to homes worth up to £300,000.
• It has been said that 80% of people buying their first home, as a result of this, will now pay no stamp duty.\

National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage

• The National Living Wage (the obligatory minimum wage payable to workers over the age of 25) will increase by 33p per hour after April 2018 with over 2 million people being expected to benefit.
• The HM Treasury has argued that this will represent a pay rise of over £600 a year for full-time workers.

Transport

• A new railcard will be introduced for those aged 26 to 30 in the Spring of 2018.
• The railcard for 16-25 year olds that currently exists is £30 a year and enables the individual to save ⅓ on rail fares.

Education

• Schools will now receive £600 for every extra pupil who takes A Level or Core Mathematics.
• £27m will be invested in helping to improve how maths is taught in 3000 schools and £49m will be pledged towards helping students when resitting GCSE Maths.
• Every specialist maths school that is set up across the country will receive £350,000 of extra funding each year.
• There will also be an increase of 8,000 fully-qualified computer science teachers.

Environment

• £540m will be invested in the growth of the electric vehicle industry.
• £220m will go to the Clear Air Fund for local areas with the highest rates of air pollution.
  • Local authorities will then be able to use this money to help citizens adapt to the plans put in place to reduce air pollution (including reducing the cost of public transport for low income commuters or introducing modernised buses with energy efficient technology).
  • This money will originate from a (temporary) rise in Company Car Tax and Vehicle Excise Duty on new diesel cars.
• There will be a reduction in single-use plastics waste; the government is seeking views on how to do this through the tax system and charges.
• The money will come from a temporary rise in Company Car Tax and Vehicle Excise Duty on new diesel cars.

And that’s our whistle-stop-tour of the Autumn Budget! Parliament can be complicated enough to comprehend to begin with without the addition of big statistics and political jargon, but we hope our guide has helped you in understanding how money has been delegated to public services and what lies in future for the UK.

If you have a perspective on how money is delegated by the government in the UK or in your country and how it impacts on ordinary citizens, we’d love to hear it  – just send in your pitch to submissions@lappthebrand.com with a short biography about yourself and a profile image you’d like featured! Happy writing!

Written by Ella Nevill

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