The following key points are taken from the overview provided by the BBC News Website
- Furlough to be extended until the end of September
- Government to continue paying 80% of employees’ wages for hours they cannot work
- Employers to be asked to contribute 10% in July and 20% in August and September
- Support for the self-employed also to be extended until September
- 600,000 more self-employed people will be eligible for help as access to grants is widened
- £20 weekly uplift in Universal Credit worth £1,000 a year to be extended for another six months
- Working Tax Credit claimants will get £500 one-off payment
- Minimum wage to increase to £8.91 an hour from April
- UK economy shrank by 10% in 2020
- Economy forecast to rebound in 2021, with predicted annual growth of 4% this year
- Economy forecast to return to pre-Covid levels by middle of 2022, with growth of 7.3% next year
- 700,000 people have lost their jobs since pandemic began
- Unemployment expected to peak at 6.5% next year, lower than 11.9% previously predicted
- No changes to rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT
- Corporation tax on company profits above £250,000 to rise from 19% to 25% in April 2023
- Rate to be kept at 19% for about 1.5 million smaller companies with profits of less than £50,000
- Stamp duty holiday on house purchases in England and Northern Ireland extended to 30 June
- No tax charged on sales of less than £500,000
- £19m for domestic violence programmes, funding network of respite rooms for homeless women
- £10m to support armed forces veterans with mental health needs
- Tax breaks for firms to “unlock” £20bn worth of business investment
- Firms will be able “deduct” investment costs from tax bills, reducing taxable profits by 130%
- Incentives for firms to take on apprentices to rise to £3,000 and £126m for traineeships
- New UK Infrastructure Bank to be set up in Leeds
- It will have £12bn in capital, with aim of funding £40bn worth of public and private projects
- £15bn in green bonds, including for retail investors, to help finance the transition to net zero by 2050
- £1bn fund to promote regeneration in a further 45 English towns, including Middlesbrough, Preston, Swindon, Bournemouth, Newark, West Bromwich and Ipswich
- £150m for community groups to take over pubs at risk of closure
- First eight sites announced for freeports in England: East Midlands Airport, Felixstowe and Harwich, Humber, Liverpool City Region, Plymouth, Solent, Thames and Teesside