Budget 2024: Key points at-a-glance

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has delivered Labour’s first Budget since 2010, after the party’s return to power in July’s general election.

Here is a summary of the main measures we know about so far.

Personal taxes

Freeze on income tax and National Insurance thresholds to end in 2028, preventing people from being dragged into higher tax bands as their wages rise
Capital gains tax paid on profits from selling shares to increase from up to 20% to up to 24% – rates on additional property sales to stay same
Freeze on inheritance tax thresholds extended beyond 2028 to 2030

Firms to pay National Insurance on workers’ earnings above £5,000 from April, down from £9,100 currently, with the rate increasing from 13.8% to 15%
Employment allowance – which allows companies to reduce their NI liability – to increase from £5,000 to £10,500
Tax paid by private equity managers on share of profits from successful deals to rise from up to 28% to up to 32% from April
Main rate of corporation tax, paid by businesses on taxable profits over £250,000, to stay at 25% until next election

£2 cap on single bus fares in England to rise to £3 from January
5p cut to fuel duty on petrol and diesel, due to end in April 2025, kept for another year
Commitment to fund tunnelling work to take HS2 high-speed rail line to Euston station in central London
Commitment to deliver upgrade to trans-Pennine rail line between York and Manchester, running via Leeds and Huddersfield
Air Passenger Duty on flights by private jet to go up by 50%
Tax on tobacco to increase by 2% above inflation, and 10% above inflation for hand-rolling tobacco
Tax on non-draught alcoholic drinks to increase by the higher RPI measure of inflation, but tax on draught drinks cut by 1.7%

Current affordable homes budget, which runs until 2026, boosted by £500m
Social housing providers to be allowed to increase rents above inflation under multi-year settlement, external
Stamp duty surcharge, paid on second home purchases in England and Northern Ireland, to go up from 3% to 5%

Legal minimum wage for over-21s to rise from £11.44 to £12.21 per hour from April
Rate for 18 to 20-year-olds to go up from £8.60 to £10, as part of a long-term plan to move towards a “single adult rate”
Eligibility widened for the allowance paid to full-time carers, by increasing the maximum earnings threshold from £151 to £195 a week

Office for Budget Responsibility predicts the UK economy will grow by 1.1% this year, 2% next year, and 1.8% in 2026
Inflation predicted to average 2.5% this year, 2.6% next year, before falling to 2.3% in 2026
Official definition of UK government debt loosened by including a wider range of financial assets, such as future student loan repayments

Extra £22.6bn for day-to-day spending on the NHS in England, and a £3.1bn boost to budget for investment
£6.7bn allocated for education investment next year, with £1.4bn earmarked for rebuilding over 500 schools

£11.8bn allocated to compensate victims of the infected blood scandal, with £1.8bn set aside for wrongly prosecuted Post Office sub-postmasters
Government to stop receiving surplus cash from pension scheme for mineworkers