Autumn Budget 2025: Key announcements

After months of discussion, speculation and U-turns, Rachel Reeves finally unveiled her second Budget, not before the contents had accidentally been leaked!

With a black hole getting worse and worse, structural tax measures to raise revenue were put forward, but there were also frozen thrsholds with specific time-frames, a kind of prior warning. The Chancellor abandoned the planned increase in income tax rates, which would have been the first rate rise since 1975.
The two-child benefit cap will be removed from April 2026, and welfare benefits will rise in line with inflation. This and other spending announcements will be paid for by freezing income tax thresholds, taxing pension contributions, charging electric cars per mile, a mansion tax for high end properties, a gambling tax, a tourism tax, etc, A mix of measures to add more another layer of complexity to the tax system.