Autumn Budget 2025: Live updates as Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to ship Labour’s cash seize price range 

With just a couple of hours to go before the big announcement, here’s what the Chancellor is expected to announce later today…

• A ‘mansion tax’: The owners of more expensive homes face being hit with a new ‘mansion tax’ worth an average of £4,500.
• Freeze on income tax thresholds: The Chancellor is expected to freeze income tax thresholds for an extra two years to 2030.
• Workplace pensions: Ms Reeves will target a £3billion raid on the ‘salary-sacrifice’ schemes used by millions of private-sector workers.
• Electric cars: The Chancellor is said to be considering a 3p per mile tax for electric vehicles (EVs).
• Two-child benefit cap: Ms Reeves is widely expected to bow to pressure from Labour MPs by scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
• ISA limit: The Chancellor is poised to slash the annual cash ISA limit to £12,000 from £20,000.
• A ‘taxi tax’: The Treasury has refused to rule out slapping 20 per cent VAT on private hire fares.
• Gambling: Ms Reeves has suggested she could raise taxes on betting firms at the Budget and said the Treasury had been ‘taking evidence’ on the issue.
• Minimum wage: The Chancellor is expected to confirm that the minimum wage for workers over 21 will rise by about 4.1 per cent to around £12.71 an hour.

What has already been announced:

A ‘milkshake tax’: In an unexpected move ahead of the budget, Wes Streeting announced on Tuesday that the Government is extending the ‘sugar tax’ for pre-packaged milk-based drinks such as milkshakes.

He also declared that the threshold for the levy is being lowered from 5g of sugar per 100ml to 4.5g – potentially dragging in many more drinks.

‘Tourist tax’: The Chancellor will give mayors new powers to charge tourists for overnight stays in a move which could cost British holidaymakers more than £500million.

Today’s budget marks the second in Labour’s administration and follows on from one the biggest tax raids in history following Rachel Reeves’ first ever financial statement in October last year.

The showpiece fiscal event is traditionally held once a year by governments to set out their taxation plans as well as spending on health, schools, the police and other public services.

Rachel Reeves will deliver her maiden budget in the Commons after Prime Minister’s Questions, which starts at midday.

At around 12.30 she will stand at the dispatch box and deliver her speech, which usually lasts an hour. The first part of the statement typically begins with a review of the nation’s finances followed by her proposals for taxation.

When she sits down, the Conservatives will immediately respond, with comments from Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch, rather than the Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride.

Experts warned that months of speculation fuelled by Treasury leaks and the Chancellor herself has ‘flatlined growth’, with investors, consumers and homebuyers all delaying key decisions

Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said Ms Reeves now risks ‘increasing taxes that are bad for growth’. She told Times Radio on Monday:

If you do lots of small things, often our smaller taxes are particularly badly designed and therefore you can end up increasing taxes that are bad for growth.

Investors will be nervous if they see a list of tax increases, but don’t quite trust how much revenue it will bring in.

Economist Mohamed El-Erian said the ‘chaotic’ Budget preparations had already damaged the economy. The former head of investment giant Pimco told the BBC:

There are a number of data points that suggest the prolonged speculation has flatlined growth. You see this in the latest retail sales figures, which were the first decline since May. You see this in the decline of business confidence.

The economy has paid a price for a process that has been delayed, has been full of speculation and that has seen the Government send conflicting signals. A Budget has a journey and a destination. If you make the journey complex, if it seems chaotic, then your destination becomes harder to reach…it has made hard choices even harder.

The warning echoes comments at the weekend by former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane, who said the ‘fiscal fandango’ of the past months had caused ‘paralysis’ among businesses and consumers.

We need a decisive action that puts to bed any notion of further tax rises.

Paul Johnson, former director at the IFS, told Sky News:

You have seen thousands of people take money out of their pensions because they were worried about potential changes. You have had an effect on the housing market. There has been an effect on business investment. This is real-world damage.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves promises to ‘deliver on [Labour’s] promise of change’ by cutting on national debt.