Before making Thursday's Autumn Statement Chancellor Jeremy Hunt warned he would be "Scrooge". And headlines in his hour-long speech made grim reading as he dealt with the fall-out from Kwasi Kwarteng's mini-budget eight weeks earlier under Liz Truss's leadership.
His warnings of further steep rises in energy bills through to income tax and council tax have already left many households facing cuts in their income. There are also likely to be job losses and a drop in the standard of living by around 7% over the next two years.
But hidden away from the headlines there were a series of more details of where spending was going to be tackled. The Mirror dug deep into the documents and found the hidden footnotes to give an even fuller picture of the cuts ahead. This is what it found:
£250 council tax bombshell
Families face a £250 council tax rise in a single year after Jeremy Hunt gave the green light for 5% annual rises. The Chancellor axed the 3% limit on hikes without holding a referendum, and instead will let town halls raise council tax by 5% a year indefinitely.
Treasury officials are expecting 95% of town halls to use the full 5% to reduce their cuts. It is expected to net an extra £3.3bn a year by 2026/27 and £4.8bn a year by 2027-28.
The average Band D bill is already almost £2,000 a year. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) says the expected windfall is the equivalent of raising the average Band D bill by £250 in 2027/28.
Further cuts coming after 2025
Spending across government will rise to 2025. But then Jeremy Hunt will begin cuts of £11.6bn in 2025/26, £23.2bn in 2026/27, and £36.3bn in 2027/28, compared to what was planned previously. He will do this by raising day-to-day spending in real terms by only 1% a year, and slashing capital spending - on big infrastructure projects - by freezing it at the 2025 rate.
Even though spending rises overall, the IFS think tank predicts “unprotected” departments like councils, prisons, police, HMRC and courts will be cut back to make up for bigger rises in the NHS and defence. Meanwhile Cabinet Office spending is due to halve in real terms from £900m in 2021/22 to £400m in 2024/25. And Levelling-Up Department funding - excluding local government - will fall by £500m in real terms by 2024/25.
Stealth raid drags 2.6million into paying 40p tax
Jeremy Hunt will drag 3.2million more people into paying 20p income tax - and 2.6million more people into paying the 40p rate - thanks to six years of stealth rises.
The Chancellor is freezing the £12,570 threshold for paying Income Tax and National Insurance and the £50,270 threshold for paying the 40p rate up to April 2028.
That’ll mean the number of people paying higher-rate tax rises from 11% to 15%, its highest since the current tax regime began in 1990.
Tax burden highest since Second World War
Today’s hikes will send the UK's tax burden to its highest level since the Second World War, according to the OBR. By 2024-25, the tax burden will be 37.5% - with an estimated 55% of households paying more in tax.
The last time tax was anywhere near this high as a share of GDP was in 1948, when it was just under 37%.
Fuel duty could be hiked by 23% next year
Buried on page 53 of the OBR's document is the startling admission that forecasts assume a 23% increase in fuel duty from March 2023. That would put around 12p a litre on petrol and diesel - which would raise a whopping £5.7billion for the Treasury.
It seems unlikely though, given fuel duty has been frozen since January 2011 - and Tory MPs are already furiously demanding a temporary 5p cut is extended.
House prices set to fall by 9% next year
House prices are expected to fall 9% between the winter 2022 and late summer 2024 as the cost of paying a mortgage soars. And average interest rates on the stock of outstanding mortgages are expected to peak at 5% in the second half of 2024, the highest level since 2008, the OBR added.
As the economy recovers, house prices are expected to be around seven times earnings. The OBR said there is significant uncertainty over its forecast.
Living standards will fall by 7%
Household disposable income will plummet a staggering 7.1% in real terms over this year and next year - the biggest drop since records began in 1956. The grim conclusion was drawn by the OBR, which said disposable income will still be below pre-pandemic levels by 2028.
Unemployment will hit 4.9% by mid-2024, the watchdog added, up from 3.5%, with half a million jobs due to be lost over an 18-month recession.
£18billion ‘giveaway’ to banks
Tories have been blasted for an £18billion "giveaway" to big banks by cutting the Bank Surcharge from 8% to just 3% from April. The Lib Dems urged Mr Hunt to reverse the move, along with a cut to the Bank Levy.
Next year the two bank taxes will raise a combined £2.5 billion - down from £4.7billion in 2016-17 – a cut of 56%. This means banks operating in the UK will pay £18billion less in these taxes over the next five years, the party said.
Half of households to be worse off in cash terms
Half of all households - everyone in the highest 50% of earners - will be worse off in cash terms as a result of decisions announced in the budget. The biggest impact is caused by the £500 cut in generosity of the Energy Price Guarantee, the Treasury’s own impact assessment shows.
But a chunk of the pain will come from tax hikes - particularly for the top 10% of earners, who could be a little over £900 worse off overall.
Some help for the high street - but the Amazon tax has been dumped
High street businesses will receive a £14billion tax cut over five years as they compete with online rivals.
The business rates multiplier will be frozen for another year, with “extended and increased relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, worth almost £2.1bn in a boost for the Mirror’s High Street Fightback campaign. Firms with vast, out-of-town warehouses, such as Amazon, will pay more.
But it's not all bad news for Amazon. The mooted Online Sales Tax - planned to try and restore the balance between internet giants and bricks and mortar stores - has been scrapped. Apparently it would have been too "complex" and create "unintended distortion or unfair outcomes between different business models."
Tax on electric cars will rake in £1.5bn
The Government plans to raise a bumper £1.5billion a year in tax from electric vehicles. From 2025, electric car drivers will no longer be exempt from vehicle excise duty - something Jeremy Hunt said in his speech would make the system "fairer."
The AA said stripping electrics from their tax-exempt status would delay environmental benefits.
600,000 people face benefit sanctions
Universal Credit claimants who already work more than half the week will be told to increase their hours - and could have their benefits stopped if they don’t co-operate. People whose income is equivalent to 15-35 hours a week “will be required to meet with a dedicated work coach in a Jobcentre Plus to increase their hours or earnings”, the small print of the Budget says.
That'll mean 600,000 working benefit claimants having to meet with their work coach.
It’s understood those who don’t co-operate can be sanctioned under the existing punishment regime. A phased rollout will begin in September 2023.
£1bn less to fix crumbling schools
The amount of money departments can spend on capital projects - like maintaining buildings - has been frozen in cash terms from 2025 to 2027. When inflation is taken into account, that means the Department for Education will have £1 billion less to spend fixing crumbling schools in 2024-25.
More extra cash to tackle benefit fraud than tax avoidance
The Government plans to put an extra £280million into targeting benefit fraud and error next year. That is three and a half times more than the £79million extra they’re investing in tackling serious tax fraud and avoidance by the super rich over the next five years.
They hope to claw back an additional £2.2billion in savings on the benefits bill every year by 27-28, compared to just £725million of prevented tax avoidance in five years.
Who produced the big private schools claim?
In his speech, Jeremy Hunt said "certain estimates" suggested slapping VAT on private schools - a key Labour policy - would push 90,000 kids to move to state schools.
But who made these "certain estimates"? They were made in a report commissioned by the Independent Schools Council - the lobbying body for the private schools industry.
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