After chancellor Philip Hammond unveiled his autumn Budget, here is a summery of his main announcements:
- Funding for government departments' Brexit preparations increased from £1.5bn to £2bn.
- GDP growth in 2019 upgraded from 1.3% to 1.6% by Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
- Deficit forecast by the OBR to fall to 0.8% by 2023/2024.
- NHS funding to rise £20.5bn in real terms over the next five years.
- A new £2bn mental health crisis service to be included in the NHS 10-year plan.
- A further £650m in grant funding for English local authorities in 2019/20.
- An extra £1bn for the Ministry of Defence to boost cyber and anti-submarine warfare programmes to the end of 2019.
- Counter-terrorism police to get an extra £160m funding for 2019/20.
- English air ambulance services to receive £10m in Government funding.
- A one-off £400m payment to schools to allow them to buy kit.
- An immediate £420m payment to tackle potholes, bridge repairs and other minor road works.
- The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and its successor PFI2 abolished for future government projects.
- UK Digital Services Tax to be introduced in April 2020 targeting online giants with more than £500m in global revenues.
- Smaller firms' contribution to apprenticeship levy cut from 10% to 5%.
- Lettings Relief limited to homes with owner in shared occupancy with tenant from April 2020.
- Action against tax avoidance, evasion, and unfair outcomes expected to raise further £2bn over next five years.
- A £650m Future High Streets Fund co-funded by the government to help councils improve high streets.
- Business rates cut by a third for two years for shops, pubs, restaurants and cafes in England with rateable value of £51,000 and under.
- Mandatory business rates relief for all toilets available for public use – both publicly or privately owned.
- Stamp Duty abolished for all first-time buyers of shared ownership homes worth up to £500,000, retrospective from the 2017 Budget.
- An extra £500m for the Housing Infrastructure Fund for councils, to promote the building of 650,000 more homes.
- New tax on the manufacture and import of plastic packaging which is less than 30% recycled.
- Fuel duty frozen for the ninth year in a row.
- Duty on beer, cider and spirits frozen for a year.
- Tobacco duty escalator to continue to rise at inflation plus 2%.
- Remote Gaming Duty to increase to 21% for online gambling on 'games of chance' from 2019.
- An extra £1 billion over five years for the Universal Credit benefit programme.
- National Living Wage increasing by 4.9%, from £7.83 to £8.21 an hour, from April 2019.
- Income tax personal allowance threshold to rise to £12,500 from April 2019.
- Higher rate income tax threshold to rise to 50,000 at the same time.
- Both to be indexed to inflation from 2021/2022.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here