Stick with Guido for live updates of Rishi’s budget announcements. Stay tuned…

• “Today we act with a plan for jobs”. To protect, support and create jobs

The nature of the challenge

• Three phases:
  • March – social distancing and lockdown, £49 billion economic package, furloughing
  • Now entering second phase – jobs, jobs, jobs
  • The third phase will be to “rebuild”, with budget and spending review to come in the Autumn
• IMF predicting the largest global recession on record, UK economy shrank 25% over last two months, the same it grew in the previous 18 years

The detail of our plan for jobs

• Furloughing “cannot and should not go on forever”
  • Keeping the scheme in place forever will just give people “false hope” that they’ll be able to return to the jobs they had before
• Furlough will wind down “flexibly and gradually” through to October
• NEW jobs retention bonus: employers who bring back furloughed staff and keep them on until at least January will get £1000 per employee
  • Employee must be payed the lower-earning National Insurance limit
  • At most, this could be a £9 billion programme
• New 3 point plan for jobs:
  • Help people find jobs
  • Creat jobs
  • Protect jobs
• Help younger people:
  • 700,000 are leaving education this year
  • Under-25s are 2.5x more likely to work in a sector that’s been closed
• NEW kickstart scheme
  • Directly pay employers to create new jobs for young people, must be at least minimum wage and min. 25 hours per week
  • Government will cover 6 months wages plus overheads, around £6,500 per young person on the scheme
  • Making available £2 billion to start with, with a promise of no cap on places
• Government to fund enough new career advisers to support 250,000 people
• For next 6 months, government will pay employers to create new apprenticeships

• Government giving big boost to job centres and work programmes for adults and long-term unemployed
  • £1 billion funding boost for DWP

• Supporting job creation:
  • £88 billion of capital funding announced at the budget, £5 billion announced by the PM last week
  • This will be a “green recovery” 
  • £2 billion “green homes grant”, with vouchers for homeowners to make green improvements, up to £5000 per households and up to £10,000 for low-income households.
  • Will support 140,000 green jobs

• NEW Sunak cuts stamp duty, increasing the threshold from £125,000 to £500,000, until the 31st March next year. 9/10 main home buyers will pay no stamp duty this year

Consumption

• NEW VAT on hospitality and tourism cut on food, accommodation and attractions to 5% from Wednesday until January
• NEW for Month of August, everyone will get an “eat out to help out” voucher. Meals eaten at any participating business, Monday to Wednesday, will get 50% off up to £10 off

Sunak claims the above is a £30 billion package of new announcements…