23 November 2017

The Autumn Budget – what it means for print

The second of two Budgets in 2017 was cautious, with growth downgraded as a result of productivity showing no signs of improvement. Below we've rounded up the measures most likely to affect our members - though, as usual, it's the changes impacting everyday household costs which will attract the most headlines. Unlike the Spring Budget, there was a rabbit in the Chancellor's hat this time, which saw the abolition of Stamp Duty for the vast majority of first time buyers and an emergency cash injection for the NHS.

Business rates
Those of our members who've been affected by business rate rises will recall this year's Spring Budget 2017 announcement of an additional £435 million to support businesses most affected by the latest revaluation. In today's Budget, the Government pledged to provide a further £2.3bn of support to businesses and improve the fairness of the system in England. This will be done by switching the measure of inflation used to index business rates to CPI from RPI from April 2018. There will also be legislation to retrospectively address the so-called "staircase tax" - affected businesses will be able to ask the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) to recalculate valuations so that bills are based on previous practice backdated to April 2010. This includes those who lost Small Business Rate Relief as a result of a Court judgement. It was also announced that from 2022 the VOA will revalue business properties every three years rather than every five years. We will monitor this change closely to ensure that undue burden is not imposed on businesses, and that the intention - to reduce rate rise shocks - is actually achieved.

Wages
The National Living Wage for those aged 25 and over will increase from £7.50 per hour to £7.83 per hour from April 2018. Over 2 million people are expected to benefit. For full-time employees, it represents a pay increase of over £600 a year.
The National Minimum Wage will also increase, to £7.38 for 21-24 year olds, £5.90 for 18-20 year olds, £4.20 for 16 and 17 year olds and £3.70 for apprentices.

Education and skills
The announcement of T-Levels in the Spring Budget, welcomed by the BPIF, was strengthened with a further £20m announced for further education colleges to help prepare for their introduction. We believe that, done well, T-Levels could go a long way to remove stigma around technical training and ensure that young people are work-ready, a topic of constant concern to our members up and down the country.

Plastic packaging
Expectations that the Budget might introduce definitive measures to reduce plastic packaging were not quite met, with the Chancellor instead announcing a consultation to investigate how the tax system, and charges on single-use packaging, might be used to reduce waste. Building on the 5p charge on plastic bags introduced in 2015, disposables like coffee cups, toothpaste tubes and polystyrene takeaway boxes were singled out as likely topics for consultation. For our members in packaging, any regulatory or legislative outcomes from the consultation are likely to have an impact - we'll gather your views and respond to the consultation, which is expected to be published by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shortly.