Overview
- Finance Minister Rachel Reeves presented the budget minutes after the fiscal watchdog accidentally posted its assessment online, short‑circuiting the set‑piece Commons reveal.
- The package targets roughly £26 billion a year in extra revenue by the end of the decade, led by a freeze of income‑tax thresholds until 2030/31 that Reeves acknowledged breaks a pledge on taxing working people.
- Further measures include a surcharge on homes worth over £2 million, with a higher rate above £5 million, planned increases to taxes on gambling and capital gains, and a per‑mile charge for electric and plug‑in hybrids starting in 2028.
- Spending commitments scrap the two‑child limit on benefits from 2026—claimed to lift about 450,000 children out of poverty—raise the national minimum wage, and uprate benefits and the state pension.
- The OBR cut medium‑term growth to about 1.5%, projected public debt near 96% of GDP and a record tax share by 2030, while markets responded calmly with gilt yields slipping and sterling firmer.