Government News
CIPP summary of Budget 2017 9 March 2017
The CIPP policy team has produced a summary of the key items that will impact on payroll and general business activity from the Chancellor's Spring Budget 2017.
Introduction The last Spring Budget began with strong statements, “ a labour market delivering record employment” and “ a deficit down by over two-thirds” . And of course, as the government starts the negotiations to exit the European Union “this Budget takes forward our plan to prepare Britain for a brighter future”. Philip Hammond then went on to ask us to wish him luck; after the Treasury had apparently pointed out that he is not the first to announce the last Spring Budget. Twenty four years ago Norman Lamont made the very same announcement, reporting on an economy that was growing faster than any other in the G7, and committed to continued restraint in public spending. The then Prime Minister described it as the ‘right budget, at the right time, from the right Chancellor’. Ten weeks later, he was sacked, “ so wish me luck” said the Right Honorable Hammond. This vein of humour continued throughout his speech, mainly to the detriment of those sitting across the table, though he did allow time to include some Budget detail, along with his aspirations for the UK to be the best place to be to do business; growth forecasts have been upgraded, more opportunities are being extended to all our young people and there is further investment in our public services, in particular the NHS. The sugar tax is working, local pubs are to get discounts on business rates, corporation tax is to fall to 17% by 2020 as planned, and fuel duty is to be frozen again for 2017-18.
“ We are stronger together ” said the Chancellor as he announced £350m funding for the Scottish Government, £200m for the Welsh Government and £120m for the Northern Ireland executive.
Education received several boosts with funding for further new free schools, over £200m to repair and rebuild existing schools and the introduction of T- levels to raise the status of technical education and further support for 16 to 19 year olds. From a payroll perspective, it was rumoured that the changes next month to the way the current intermediaries legislation is applied to off-payroll working in the public sector would be extended to the private sector, but there was no mention of this. Neither was there any mention of pensions tax relief or the extension of Shared Parental leave and pay to grandparents.
Our summary of announcements details the actual changes which could affect payroll and employers and as ever we will be scrutinising the 64 page red Budget book for any underlying detail which we will publish over the coming days.
The CIPP policy team has also produced a Budget 2017 webcast so listen in if you want to know the key announcements from the budget or would like to share a summary with your payroll teams.
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