Other Key Announcements from the 2015 Budget Included the Following

Budget 2015

Other key announcements from the 2015 budget included the following:

Economy

·  The UK economy grew 2.6 per cent in 2014, which is faster than any other advanced economy, but lower than the 3 per cent predicted in December.

·  The Office of Budgetary Responsibility has revised its projection of growth for 2015; growth has increased from 2.4 per cent at the 2014 Autumn Statement, to 2.5 per cent today.

·  Inflation is projected to fall to 0.2 per cent in 2015.

·  The deficit has halved since 2010, as a share of national income.

Welfare and living standards

·  Austerity will not end until 2019; the Chancellor said that the Government aims to "repair the roof while the sun shines".

·  Living standards are reportedly higher than they were in May 2010, according to the Office of Budgetary Responsibility data, with households £900 better off, on average, in the last five years.

·  The Government plans to implement seven waiting days for Universal Credit in July 2015.

Health and social care

·  The Government will explore options to integrate spending on health and social care services for people with multiple needs.

·  The Government will explore how to improve efficiency and integration among the health and social care sector; it will learn from the work of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, from results of mental health pilots, and from progressing the Better Care Fund.

Education

·  The Department for Education will provide schools with a new indicator to compare their overall efficiency, and parents will be able to assess school benching mark tools.

·  The Government will introduce a range of initiatives to improve the effectiveness of education support staff through a series of projects being run by the Education Endowment Foundation.

Business and employment

·  Employment is at a record high, with the unemployment rate predicted to fall to 5.3 per cent this year.

·  The London Mayor will be handed new powers over skills and planning.

·  The Government will support customers to make informed choices when food shopping by developing improved guidance for supermarkets on unit pricing everyday items consistently.

Tax, pensions and savings

·  Pensioners will now be able to cash in annuities, and pension pot lifetime allowance will be reduced from £1.25 million to £1 million from next year, resulting in savings of £600 million annually.

·  The tax-free personal allowance will rise from £10,600 in 2014-15 to £10,800 in 2016, and to £11,000 in 2017.

·  The threshold at which people start paying 40p tax will rise above inflation, from £42,385 to £43,300, by 2017/18.

·  Annual paper tax returns will be abolished, as the Government moves towards digital administration; updated online tax accounts will allow people to manage complex accounts online. (N.B. RNIB will work to ensure that new digital systems are accessible to blind and partially sighted users. We will also work to raise awareness of fact that, for many people, paper tax returns continue to be the preferable format.)

·  The Government will review inheritance tax avoidance through ‘deeds of variation’.

·  The Government will introduce a 'Help to Buy' ISA; for every £200 saved for a deposit, the Government will top it up by £50, from September 2015.

·  Beer duty will be reduced by 1p per pint, cider by 2 per cent and Scottish sprits by 2 per cent. Wine duty will be frozen, and tobacco and gaming taxes will remain unchanged.

Culture, arts and media

·  The Government announced that ultrafast broadband of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) would be available to nearly all UK premises, further measures to support the delivery of broadband in rural areas, the opening of the broadband connection voucher scheme to a total of 50 cities by 1 April 2015, and funding of up to £600 to support the delivery of the change of use of 700MHz spectrum.

Housing and local government

·  HM Treasury, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Government Digital Service, will collaborate with partners in local government to develop more customer-focused, digitally-enabled local services.

·  The Government will implement ‘GOV.UK Verify’ across central government; GOV.UK Verify is a new way for users to prove their identity online, when using government services.

·  Two pilot schemes in Leeds City Region and Greater Manchester are to trial local sharing initiatives in the areas of shared transport, shared public space, and health and social care. The pilots are due to run in 2015-16.

Science and technology

·  £100 million will be invested in driverless technology.

Energy

·  Petrol duty will be frozen, and the planned increase announced in September will be scrapped.

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