Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered one of the most roisterous of Budgets of recent years, aiming to carry his party through the next general election on an hour’s worth of promises and pledges.
Most of the big news – such as the 2p cut in National Insurance and the pot-for-life proposals – had been widely disseminated among the press before the event yesterday (March 6).
But other elements came as a bit of a surprise, not least a dig at the Labour front bench MPs with several houses.
Hidden within the 94-page Budget document – and hundreds more pages of accompanying papers – were other nuggets that Hunt just did not have time for in his long speech, probably to the relief of everyone, not least the deputy speaker of the House.
Team FTA did a sterling job (if I may say so) yesterday in putting together many of the big-news stories but here are a smattering of small tidbits from the Budget that you may have otherwise missed.
1) NatWest
Hunt mentioned this in his speech – hard to hear over the burblings of the chamber – but the government plans to “fully exit from its NatWest shareholding” (a horrid torturing of the English language, which should have correctly been ‘to divest completely’.
It intends to do so by 2025-2026. To date, the government has raised £14.5bn from sales of the shareholding to date.
The documents stated: “As part of its long-standing ambition to return NatWest to private ownership … the government plan intends to deliver a sale of part of its NatWest shareholding to retail investors.”
A sale will take place this summer “at the earliest”, so you can buy that instead of back-to-school supplies.
2) Very Large Firms
The Budget documents also stated the charge for “Very Large Firms” (the Treasury’s capitals, not mine) to £500,000 a year, from 2024-2025 in respect of the Economic Crime (anti-money laundering) levy.
This is double the current £250,000 and is a response to “lower-than-expected receipts”.
3) Starting rate for savings
Despite stating that it intends to get more Britons saving and investing into the UK economy, the government has held the starting rate for savings at £5,000 for the 2024-2025 tax year.
Considering the Trussell Trust has claimed nearly 2mn Brits are using foodbanks, that’s probably out of the reach of most ordinary families in any case.
4) OWR
Not a lesson in phonics, but the Overseas Workday Relief scheme. Eligible employees will be able to claim OWR for the first three years of tax residence, as part of the changes to the non-UK domicile tax rules.
They will therefore benefit from income tax relief on earnings for duties carried out overseas, but with restrictions on remitting these earnings removed.
5) Right to buy receipts
The government will allow local authorities more flexibility in their use of right-to-buy receipts.
The Budget documents stated: “The government will increase the cap from 40 per cent to 50 per cent of the percentage of the cost of a replacement home that can be funded from right-to-buy receipts.”
6) Gilt issuance
The government anticipates that £224.3bn of total gilts sales will take place by auction in the next tax year, with roughly £31bn by syndication.
This is broken down:
- £95.3bn – short conventional gilts
- £82.1bn – medium conventional gilts, including green gilts
- £49bn of long conventional gilts, including green gilts
- £28.9bn of index-linked gilts.
7) NS&I and Green Savings Bonds
National Savings & Investments will have a net financing target of £9bn set in 2024-2025. Finance raised from the British Savings Bonds, which were announced in the Budget, will contribute to this target.
Regarding the Green Savings Bonds, which NS&I launched in 2021, the NS&I bean-counters estimate there will have been £1bn raised from GSBs in the 2023-2024 financial year, and £1.9bn raised in total since October 2021.
Last word?
But with no uplift to the individual tax thresholds, even more Isa products than ever, and a lack of real change in terms of income tax and CGT, the punters – according to our inbox – are not particularly happy.
As Tom Clougherty, executive director of the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, said: “As always, there are good and bad things in this Budget.
“But if we take a broader view of economic policy, it hasn’t really moved us any closer to where we need to be.”