Earlier this week, Rishi Sunak announced the 2021 Autumn Budget. Tina Din, Associate in our Employment Law and Professional Discipline team comments on the impacts on the UK economy.

With the unveiling of the Budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak looks to pave the way for an ‘economy of higher wages, higher skills, and rising productivity’.

This BBC article summarises the key points at a glance. Notably, the UK economy is forecast to return to pre-Covid levels by 2022 and wages have grown in real terms by 3.4% since February 2020. National Living Wage is to increase next April by 6.6%, to £9.50 an hour from £8.91. This will go towards helping those groups affected the hardest by the pandemic, namely young workers and those in low paid jobs.

There is also a 50% business rates discount for the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors in England in 2022-23, up to a maximum of £110,000, the aim being to give the sectors hardest hit a boost in the right direction.

The budget is indeed hopeful that the UK economy will recover from the effects of the pandemic in the midst of also negotiating the after effects of leaving the European Union.

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