Budget bitesize bullet factors: 12 issues you must know from Rachel Reeves’ speech

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has unveiled a series of bold promises in her Budget this afternoon, with implications for millions of people – from the lowest to highest earning Brits

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Everything you need to know about the budget

• Top of the headlines from the Budget is the Government’s decision to drop the controversial two-child benefit cap. Multiple parties and politicians have called for the limit to the benefit to be dropped, and Ms Reeves has acquiesced today, costing what the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimated in a leaked report would cost £3 billion by 2029-30.
• As previously revealed by the Mirror, National Minimum and Living Wage will increase after the latest budget, with millions of people set to benefit from April 2026. The National Living Wage will rise to £12.71 per hour for workers over 21-years-old, and the National Minimum Wage for 18 to 20-year-olds will also increase by 8.5 percent to £10.85 per hour.
• Taxes also featured prominently, with property, savings and dividend rates set to rise by two percentage points, the Chancellor announced. She told the Commons: “Currently, a landlord with an income of £25,000 will pay nearly £1,200 less in tax than their tenant with the same salary because no National Insurance is charged on property, dividend or savings income.”
• A so-called “Mansion Tax” will be introduced, costing homeowners £2,500 for properties worth more than £2 million, and £7,500 for properties worth more than £5 million.
• Income tax and equivalent national insurance thresholds will also be frozen at their current levels into the 2030s, and people receiving basic or new state pension will not “have to pay small amounts of tax through simple assessment from April 2027”.
• Salary sacrifices into pensions above £2,000 will be taxed from 2029, a step the Chancellor said would be a “pragmatic step so that people, especially on low and middle incomes, can continue to use salary sacrifice for their pension without paying any more tax than they do now”.
• Some taxes will be reduced, including Capital Gains Tax relief on business sales made to employee ownership trusts, which will be reduced from 100 to 50 percent.
• Electric vehicle (EV) users will pay 3p per mile in a new tax the Chancellor is calling a “vehicle excise duty on electric cars” which will help the government “to double road maintenance funding in England over the course of this Parliament”.
• An existing tax on remote gaming will rise from 21 to 40 percent, and on online betting from 15 to 25 percent, while there are no changes for in-person gambling or horse-racing, and bingo duty is being abolished.
• The Chancellor also pledged to “renew” the NHS as she confirmed a £300 million investment in the health service’s technology, something she vowed would “improve patient service and 250 new neighbourhood health centres, expanding more services into communities so that people can receive treatment outside of hospitals and get better, faster care where they live with over 100 to be delivered by 2030 including in Birmingham, Truro and Southall”.
• ISA rules are also set to change, with the Chancellor requiring £8,000 of the £20,000 tax-free ISA allowance to be invested in stocks and shares, capping the annual cash ISA allowance at £12,000, except for those who are over 65.
• Ms Reeves has also chosen to scrap the Eco energy scheme, a move she has said will cut £150 from the average household energy bill from April.
• READ THE FULL STORY: Budget 2025 LIVE: Rachel Reeves confirms axe of DWP two-child benefit cap