Pre-Budget Report

SciFiBoy!

Great Teacher
Source: BBC News

Key points: The pre-Budget report at-a-glance

A summary of the key announcements in Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report.

TAX

* All national insurance rates to rise by a further 0.5% from April 2011, raising £3bn a year
* VAT to return to 17.5% from 15% from 1 January 2010. No other changes to VAT
* One-off 50% tax on bank bonuses of more than £25,000
* Stamp duty holiday on certain properties to end on 1 January 2010
* Bingo duty to be cut from 22% to 20%

ECONOMIC FORECASTS

* Economy forecast to shrink 4.75% in 2009, worse than 3.5% forecast in April
* Growth of 1%-1.5% expected in 2010 and 3.5% in 2011 and 2012

BORROWING

• 2009 forecast raised by £3bn to £178bn

* Estimated borrowing of £176bn in 2010 and £140bn in 2011, falling to £96bn in 2013
* Budget deficit to be halved by 2013
* Estimated public loss from bank bailouts reduced from £50bn to £10bn

SPENDING

* Total spending in 2010-11 to rise by £31bn.
* No spending review for period after that
* Current spending estimated to fall by 0.8% between 2011-2 and 2014-5

PAY, PENSIONS AND BENEFITS

* Basic state pension will rise by 2.5% in April 2010
* Child and disability benefit to rise by 1.5% in 2010
* Contributions to public sector pensions to be cut by £1bn a year
* All public sector pay settlements to be capped at 1% for two years from 2011

ENVIRONMENT

* £160m investment in low-carbon and renewable projects
* £200m extra investment for Warm Front insulation scheme, helping 65,000 households
* Boiler scrappage scheme for 125,000 households
* Electric cars to be exempt from company car tax for five years
* Tax rebate for installation of wind turbines and solar panels

EMPLOYMENT

* Under-24s to be guaranteed work or training after six months out of work
* Training or education guarantee for 16 and 17-year-old to be extended to 2010

BUSINESS

* New 50p tax on landline phones to pay for superfast broadband
* New 10% tax on income from patents to boost science development
* 1p increase in corporation tax for small firms to be deferred

FAMILIES

* Free school meals to an extra 500,000 low income families


The Question: what do you think of the ideas put forward?
 
I like this one. Fairer than not letting banks pay bonuses.
* One-off 50% tax on bank bonuses of more than £25,000

I wonder how they will guarantee this one....
* Under-24s to be guaranteed work or training after six months out of work
 
Bollocks to all these:
SundayMorningCall said:
* All national insurance rates to rise by a further 0.5% from April 2011, raising £3bn a year
* VAT to return to 17.5% from 15% from 1 January 2010. No other changes to VAT
* Stamp duty holiday on certain properties to end on 1 January 2010
* Bingo duty to be cut from 22% to 20%
* Basic state pension will rise by 2.5% in April 2010
* Child and disability benefit to rise by 1.5% in 2010
* Free school meals to an extra 500,000 low income families
I have to ask, if 500000 families can't afford to feed their children then what are they doing with their Child Benefit payments? Didn't a recent study show that poorer families were the ones most likely to suffer from childhood obesity? Perhaps forgoing a few meals would do them some good...

Though I have to say the 'Environment' and 'Employment' sections are uniformly good news IMO. The rest I'm indifferent to.
 
I'd like for that under 24 thing to happen, useless to me since I'm older, but good for James since he's had no luck since his injury. :/
 
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