The United Kingdom government has released its 2024 budget, the first one delivered by the Labour Party in almost 15 years.
U.K. residents voted the Labour Party into power in the July 4 general election.
U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves presented the government's budget Wednesday on the back of accusations that the former Conservative Party government left a huge hole in the country’s finances, which Labour officials claim total £22 billion ($28.6 billion).
In an address to the House of Commons, Reeves said there will be changes to the tax code to raise £40 billion, and £70 billion will be invested in infrastructure, coupled with a relaxation of construction regulations to encourage building.
The changes will place more weight on businesses, but the hotel industry might give a few muted cheers for some of the budget’s provisions.
Reeves said her choices are tough but necessary.
The opposition Conservative Party — accused by Labour of being “fast and loose” with its spending — said the announcement was a traditional one for the Labour Party: more taxes.
Of most interest to hoteliers, there were changes announced in the country’s business-rates structure.
UKHospitality and other membership and lobbying bodies in the U.K. have long urged the government to overhaul business rates, which they said places more weight on hotels due to their central locations and larger floor plans.
Beginning in the 2026 and 2027 financial years, business rates, which help fund local governments, will be lowered, Reeves said. The gap will be plugged by a higher tax multiplier paid by the most valuable properties, hotels or otherwise, and on online businesses that do not have the need for real estate.
She said a 40% relief package would be provided for the hotel, restaurant and hospitality industries up to a cap of £110,000 per business, although the rate of relief now is 75%.
In an Oct. 18 open letter to the government, UKHospitality had said the budget was the last chance the government had of averting what it saw as a “quadrupling” of tax bills.
UKHospitality CEO Kate Nicholls said the hotel industry paid business rates “three times more than we should based on economic activity levels. That is an overpayment of over £2 billion. To put it simply, our tax system discourages people from running High Street businesses.”
Nicholls said if the relief program in place would end on March 31, 2025, “inaction (now) would cost the sector £914 million in additional rates bills.”
Reeves said in her address that “the small business tax multiplier will be frozen” in 2025.
In a couple of social-media posts during the budget announcement, Nicholls said: “The multiplier for 2025/2026 will be frozen for small premises, but those above £51,000, around 60% of hospitality premises, will rise by [the] consumer price index [1.7% in Sept.]” and it “looks like [Reeves] has confirmed business rates reform from 2026 with a permanent lower tax rate for hospitality paid for by higher tax rates on online business premises. That should reduce all bills. However, current reliefs while extended are reduced to 40%.”
As expected, there will be a rise in employer National Insurance contributions, a tax that funds state pensions and maternity and statutory sick pay, among other things, but no increase in employee contributions.
Employers will pay a further 1.2% in National Insurance contributions to 15% from April 2025, with the threshold at which businesses start paying insurance on a workers’ earnings being lowered from £9,100 to £5,000.
Difficult choices
Reeves placed the blame for such heavy-handedness on the former Conservative Party government.
“I do not take this measure lightly,” she told Parliament. “In the circumstances I have inherited, it is the right thing to do. I know that this is a difficult choice.”
Small businesses will be aided by increasing employees’ allowance from £5,000 to £10,500, which Reeves added would result in approximately 865,000 employees not having to pay any National Insurance in 2025.
In a release earlier this month, the London-based Global Payroll Association said “forecasters [are] suggesting that a 1% increase in employer contributions will raise an estimated £8.5 billion a year for the public purse.” But the organization added it feared an increase in taxes paid by employers would trickle down to the salaries and wages of employees.
In its July election campaign, the Labour Party said it would not increase income taxes, corporation taxes or sales/value-added taxes.
The budget did not make changes to those types of taxes, but Reeves said that capital gains tax will increase from 10% to 18% in its lower rate band and from 18% to 24% in its higher one.
Increases to the U.K. capital gains tax was not mentioned during the summer's election campaigning, and the decision today reversed a cut in the tax made in the spring, the last budget of the former Conservative Party’s time in power.
The minimum national wage will increase by 6.7% in April, with those aged 21 years receiving £12.21 an hour. This extra cost will also hit hoteliers harder due to the high number of entry-level positions in the industry.
For those aged 18 to 20, the increase will be 16.27% to £10 an hour. Pay for apprentices — considered as real-life education without the weighty cost of an university education — will rise 18% to £7.55 an hour.
Stability needed
Upon winning the general election in July, the Labour Party was “given a mandate to restore stability to our economy and to start a decade of national renewal,” Reeves said, who added Brexit was a deal that has harmed British businesses.
She quoted the predictions of the Office of Budget Responsibility — a non-government body funded by the U.K. Treasury — that said inflation will increase in year-over-year terms by 2% in 2025, 1.8% in 2026, 1.5% in 2027, 1.5% in 2028 and 1.6% in 2029.
The Office of Budget Responsibility also predicted that the government would be debt-free in 2027.
Two loud cheers from members of Parliament came when the chancellor cut taxes by 1.1% on a pint of draft beer and abolished non-domicile status for those living the majority of any year in the U.K. but because of loopholes not paying any tax there.
The Bank of England is due to meet on Nov. 7 to make its next decision on interest rates.