Autumn Statement 2023 – NHC on-the-day briefing
The Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, today delivered his Autumn Statement amid a setting of a stuttering British economy, struggling public services, record-high levels of taxation and some of the highest levels of peacetime public borrowing and debt.
After the Government met its target of halving the level of inflation, following its fall from a multi-decade high of 10.7% to 4.6%, many Conservative backbench MPs had been calling for any fiscal headroom available to the Chancellor to be used to cut income and inheritance taxes. The Chancellor has himself publicly agreed that tax levels are higher than he would like to see but stressed that any changes to this would need to be considered alongside maintaining sustainable public finances, supporting the UK economy back to growth, incentivizing additional business investment and not allowing inflation to tick up once again.
Today, the Chancellor announced a series of tax cuts, which he framed as part of the Government’s long-term strategy for growing the economy and getting more people into work. Government says these will cut taxes for over 29 million working people, measures include reducing employee National Insurance contributions by 2% from 6 January 2024.
Ahead of the statement, the Northern Housing Consortium (NHC) submitted a representation to HM Treasury, calling for the urgent uprating of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates to ease affordability pressures in the private rental sector (PRS), the release of remaining Social Housing Decarbonisation Funds (SHDF) alongside a long-term funding commitment of £6 billion per year for housing retrofit, and additional funds for local authorities to effectively monitor and enforce compliance with the Decent Homes Standard when it is applied to the PRS for the first time.
Northern Housing Consortium CEO, Tracy Harrison, also met the Housing Minister before the Autumn Statement to once again call on the Government to uprate the LHA as a matter of urgency.
The Chancellor’s announcement that he intends to unfreeze LHA and uprate the benefit to the 30th centile in April will therefore be welcome news for renters and councils across the North.
This NHC on-the day briefing summarises this, and other relevant announcements. If you would like to discuss any of the details in the Autumn Statement, please contact the NHC’s Joanne Wilson (Head of Policy) at joanne.wilson@northern-consortium.org.uk
Read the full briefing here.
