Spring Budget 2024

Today The Chancellor set out this government's final budget ahead of the general election. 

Ahead of the Budget, we called on the government to prioritise disabled people of all ages, including investment in social care, housing and cost of living support.

There were several welcome announcements around childcare, investment in new SEND schools and an albeit short extension of the Household Support Fund. However the government yet again missed a vital opportunity to invest in social care.  

You can read our statement to the Spring Budget here, including our disappointment at the government's continued refusal to invest in the system change and support disabled people need. 

A summary of the key announcements are below.

General

• National Insurance contributions will be cut by a further 2% from 6 April.
• Increase in the VAT threshold to £90,000 from 1 April.
• The Household Support Fund will be continued at current levels for another six months. 
• Fuel duty will remain at its current rate and be frozen for the next 12 months.
• For those who take out a Universal Credit budgeting advance the repayment period extends from 12 to 24 months.

Health and Social Care

• £3.4 billion is committed to fund the NHS productivity plan ‘helping to unlock £35 billion in productivity savings over the next Parliament by harnessing new technology like AI and cutting admin workloads’
• £2.5 billion to the NHS in England for 2024-25, protecting day-to-day funding in real terms
• £45 million of additional funding to bolster medical charities’ life-saving research agendas
• £35 million over three years to improve maternity safety across England, with specialist training for staff, additional midwives and support to ensure maternity services act on women’s experiences to improve care
• The introduction of an excise duty on vaping products from 2026, along with a one-off increase in tobacco duty at the same time
• Work underway by NHS England to reduce the costs of agency staffing in the NHS including ending the use of 'off framework' agency staffing from July 2024. Nothing specifically on the social care workforce. 

• The Department for Health and Social Care sees a nearly flat resource spending over the period, rising from £171.8 billion to £176.6 billion in 2024-25 (an increase of £4.8 billion).

• NHS England sees its resource spending rise from £155.1 billion to £164.9 billion (an increase of 9.8 billion). This is partly due to the Chancellor’s commitment to spend an additional £2.5 billion on supporting the NHS.

• Departmental capital spending for health and social care will rise slightly over the period, from £9.9 billion in 2022-23 to 12.6 billion in 2024-25.

Education

• The Government will guarantee the rates paid to nurseries and childcare providers for the next two years to ensure greater financial certainty for these providers. This is in addition of the 15-hour free childcare entitlement rollout this April which the Chancellor announced at last year’s 2023 spring Budget, before increasing to 30 hours from September 2024. 
• £165 million will be invested in the children’s homes estate to expand children’s social care provision.
• £105 million to be invested, over the next four years, to build 15 new SEND free schools to create additional capacity and increase parental choice. 

• The Government will develop proposals on what more can be done to combat profiteering in children's social care, to bring down costs and create a motre sustainable market for residential placements. Plans due later in 2024.

Housing

• £20 million for a new community led housing scheme (detail to follow). 
• The furnished holiday lets tax regime will be abolished. 
• The Stamp Duty Land Tax relief for multiple dwellings will be abolished. 
• Reduce the higher rate of property Capital Gains Tax from 28% to 24%.