Budget 2021

Budget 2021

Today the Chancellor gave his Autumn Budget and Spending Review, which provides the foundations for a robust economy across every part of the United Kingdom as the country continues its recovery from the pandemic.

The Budget prioritises helping working families and vulnerable households in Portsmouth with the cost of living, including through a significant tax cut for low-income families by reducing the Universal Credit taper rate from 63per cent to 55per cent, a 6.6 per cent increase in the National Living Wage to £9.50 an hour–giving a £1,000 pay rise to 2 million of the lowest-paid lifting pay restraints for public sector workers, a freeze in fuel duty for the twelfth consecutive year, and a freeze in alcohol duty–alongside radical reform to make the system simpler, fairer and healthier.

The change to the UC taper is worth over £500 per year and together with the Household Support Fund will help families on UC as we go into the winter months. Disabled people who are not able to work or are limited in the work they can do will benefit less from these changes. As a result, I am keen the Household Support Fund is focused on these people.

Businesses will also benefit from new measures, including a 50per cent cut in business rates next year for 90per cent of retail, hospitality and leisure–alongside a freeze of all rates–the creation of new business rates relief to encourage green technologies and improvements to properties, and a doubling of creative industries tax reliefs for the UK’s world-leading theatres, orchestras, museums and galleries.

Other measures to drive economic growth include record investment in our roads, railways and broadband; supporting innovation through record spending on R&D; and a huge uplift in skills training through T-levels, Institutes of Technology, and apprenticeships.

There will be a funding increase that will help to deliver on the key manifesto promises, including building new hospitals, recruiting 20,000 police officers, and raising per-pupil spending in schools.

Following the £400 billion package of support put in place during the pandemic. The new fiscal rules set out today by the Chancellor will require the government to only borrow to invest and get debt falling by 2024.

Finally, I welcome the £20 million in funding to help transform the Lido and the surrounding area into the Urban Linear Park and invest in our Ports and the £986,000 to Moneyfields FC to transform their stadium. I look forward to seeing these projects completed.

Here are the headlines:

• Community Ownership Fund: £986,000 total funding for the John Jenkins Stadium.

• £20 million to create the longest urban Linear Park in the UK in North Portsmouth

The South East will also benefit from its share of national programmes:

• Building 7 Community Diagnostic Centres in the South East in 2021-22, which expand diagnostic capacity across the country whilst targeting investment at areas of deprivation.

• Over £2.6 billion for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund over the Spending Review, focused on helping people into jobs and supporting businesses across the UK this includes giving hundreds of thousands of adults the opportunity to develop their numeracy skills through the Adult Numeracy Programme ‘Multiply’.

• £560 million funding over the Spending Review for the Youth Investment Fund and National Citizen Service.

• £5 billion for Project Gigabit, rolling out gigabit-capable broadband for homes and businesses across the UK.

• Universal Credit taper rate will be cut by 8% no later than 1 December, bringing it down from 63% to 55% - allowing claimants to keep more of the payment

• Confirmation business rates to be retained and reforme

• A 50% business rates discount for the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors in England in 2022-23, up to a maximum of £110,000

• The planned rise in fuel duty to be cancelled amid the highest pump prices in eight years

• Consultation on an online sales tax

• National Living Wage to increase next year by 6.6%, to £9.50 an hour

• Extra £2.2bn for courts, prisons and probation services

• Tax relief for museums and galleries will be extended for two years, to March 2024

• Core science funding to rise to £5.9bn a year by 2024-25

• £6bn of funding to help tackle NHS backlogs

• Schools to get an extra £4.7bn by 2024-25. There will be nearly £2bn of new funding to help schools and colleges to recover from the pandemic

• £300m will be spent on a "Start for Life" parenting programmes, with an additional £170m by 2024-25 promised for childcare

• A UK-wide numeracy programme will be set up to help improve basic maths skills among adults

• Flights between airports in the UK nations will be subject to a new lower rate of Air Passenger Duty from April 2023

• Financial support for English airports to be extended for a further six months

• From April 2023, the new ultra-long-haul band in Air Passenger Duty for flights of over 5,500 miles introduced

• The planned rise in the duty on spirits, wine, cider and beer is cancelled. Simplification of alcohol duties will see the number of rates drop from 15 to six

• New, lower rate of duty on draught beer and cider will cut the rates by 5%

• £24bn earmarked for housing: £11.5bn for up to 180,000 affordable homes, with brownfield sites targeted for development

• 4% levy will be placed on property developers with profits over £25m rate to help create a £5bn fund to remove unsafe cladding

• £640m a year to address rough sleeping and homelessness