The chancellor of the exchequer is due to give her budget speech in the House of Commons at around 12.30 today. Details of the autumn budget will be released by HM Treasury in the course of this afternoon. Despite a plethora of leaks and government briefings, the announcements will contain some surprises. Here are some issues of concern to solicitors:
Justice spending. Rachel Reeves will outline a one-year budget settlement for government departments covering 2025-26. With the NHS identified as the key priority, we will find out if Labour plans to ease the real-terms squeeze on unprotected departments – including the Ministry of Justice. Hopes have been raised by the chancellor’s promise to reframe her fiscal rules in order to permit up to £50bn a year of extra borrowing for investment.
‘More cuts to the justice budget are untenable and will make the prime minister’s mission on crime impossible to achieve,’ the Law Society said earlier this week. ‘The chancellor must give the ministry funding to address the courts backlog, address the crisis in civil and criminal legal aid and to implement stalled reforms to the legal aid means test.’
The longer-term outlook for criminal and civil legal aid should become clearer when lord chancellor Shabana Mahmood knows her revenue spending allocation. An interview with The Times last week indicated that she was preparing to ‘go into battle with the Treasury to get more money’.
National insurance. Reeves is expected to increase the rate of employers’ national insurance contributions by between 1 and 2 percentage points from its present level of 13.8%. She may also close an apparent loophole: the exemption applying to members of limited liability partnerships, typically considered to be self-employed owners of the business rather than employees. Ending this exemption would be a relatively uncontroversial tax rise.
The Gazette will report on budget announcements as they are made.
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