The Scotland Office later claimed around 140,000 low wage workers in Scotland were expected to benefit directly.
Advertisement
The increase will see workers paid £7.20 by April, an increase of 70p on the current minimum rate, and 50p above the rise coming into effect in October.
They’re surprisingly simple. “Zero” emission cars pay nothing, “Standard” cars pay £140 a year and anything that costs more than £40,000 to buy will cost £140 a year, plus an additional £310 pa for the first five years.
The loophole now allows people who are “nondomiciled” in Britain because they have their permanent home elsewhere to pay tax only on income brought into Britain, and not on earnings and capital gains made outside the country.
But Edinburgh East SNP MP Tommy Sheppard said on Twitter: “Osborne has renamed national minimum wage as national living wage and Tories think it’s a great ruse”.
Mr Osborne said he would be “slightly more diplomatic” than the unnamed Cabinet colleague quoted in The Times as saying the Government wanted to “kick British business up their lazy arses”.
“The question is in 12 months time, will people turn around and say “that welfare reform, that has actually been significant””.
However acting Labour leader Harriet Harman responded by pointing to other measures in the Budget, such as cuts to tax credits for the low-paid and grants for students from poor families, accusing him of “making working people worse off”. “From now on they will pay the same tax as everyone else”.
Rents in the social housing sector to be reduced by 1% a year for the next four years.
“I also welcome the reduction in the benefits cap outside London to £20,000 which will start to level the playing field here on the Fylde Coast so that taxpayers on low incomes who fund the welfare state do not subsidise those earning far more than them”.
“There are some welcome changes in [Wednesday’s] budget that will help retailers support job creation and drive growth”.
But the small print of his welfare-slashing Budget tells a very different story.
He said on Wednesday he was pushing the target of a budget surplus into the 2019/20 financial year from the 2018/19 deadline projected in his previous budget plan announced a few weeks before the Conservatives’ election victory in May.
From 2017, for brand new cars a new Vehicle Excise Duty banding system will be introduced.
There will be no change for existing cars.
Is the government going to make more money out this new system?
“Yes it’s important, but it also needs to be sustainable”.
Fuel duty freeze will continue.
Universal Credit payments will also be limited to two children, while tax credits and working-age benefits will be frozen for four years. It is less than the current level and won’t apply at all to under 25s.
You will be able to pass on more to your children after you die. What this means is that for ever £1 a household earns over £3,850 will be reduced by 41p. This lifetime allowance will then increase annually at the rate of inflation from April 2018.
“The Chancellor is completely out of touch with families needs”.
Charity Barnardo’s Cymru had urged the government not to cut the “lifeline” benefit as part of plans to save £12bn from the welfare budget.
Osborne announced that while landlords will retain tax relief, it will be restricted to the basic rate of tax.
Advertisement
It shows many big families are likely to be hit despite already having three or more offspring before April 2017.
