In what must be the most eagerly awaited budget in recent times Rishi Sunak will later today unveil the details in his latest budget. While we must all wait for those critical details, some of the outline of what will be announced has already been provided.
Training
The government currently provides companies with payments of £2,000 per trainee, this is expected to rise to £3,000. The chancellor is expected to announce an additional £126m into the training scheme.
The additional funding will run alongside a new ‘flexi-job’ apprenticeship scheme in England, enabling an apprentice to work with a multiple employers in one sector.
Hospitality and high streets
The reopening of hospitality with a focus on high streets will see a new £5bn grant scheme to help businesses impacted from lockdown to reopen.
These grants have already been outlined with a ceiling of £18,000 per firm, this will be welcomed by many small businesses, but even the higher £18,000 grant is not going to make much difference to larger businesses.
With circa 700,000 businesses in England eligible for the grants, they will be available to help small businesses and will replace the current grant system.
Acquisition of community pubs
The chancellor has promised a £150 million ‘acquisition’ fund to help communities take over local pubs that face closure. The new fund will start in the summer, where local community groups can secure up to £250,000 of matched-funding to help them to convert pubs to operate as a community-owned enterprise. The fund is designed to have a £250,000 matched upper limit, but in some cases, doubtless explained by the chancellor later it could be raised to £1 million.
Furlough extension
The announcement of the furlough scheme being extended to the end of September is already known, again we expect more detail to be announced this afternoon. This will be one of the most critical elements of the budget for hospitality, with the chancellor needing to complete the second part of the PM’s roadmap.
Extension of 5% VAT rate
The budget will include a range of fiscal and financial measures designed to protect jobs and stimulate the economy. Yesterday the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Kwasi Kwarteng set expectations by revealing key elements of the chancellor’s budget. Mr Kwarteng said there would “perhaps be an extension” of the 5% VAT rate for the hospitality sector, let’s hope he is correct.
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