Chancellor Announces 2021 UK Budget
Added: 03 Mar 2021
Today (3rd March), the Chancellor the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, presented the 2021 UK Budget to Parliament. In his announcement, Mr Sunak set out a £65 billion three point plan to provide support for jobs and businesses as the UK looks to recover from the effects of the pandemic.
Whilst many of the announcements related purely to England, there were some highly significant points that are relevant to Scottish businesses:
- The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will be extended to September 2021, across the whole UK.
- An extension to the VAT cut to 5% for hospitality, accommodation and visitor attractions across the UK until the end of September, followed by a 12.5% rate for a further six months until 31 March 2022.
- The introduction of a new UK-wide Recovery Loan Scheme to replace the existing government guaranteed schemes, with loans between £25,001 and £10 million, and asset and invoice finance between £1,000 and £10 million, being made available to businesses of all sizes through the next stage of recovery
- The Scottish Government will see a further £1.2 billion in Barnett consequentials.
ASVA very much welcomes the announcement of the furlough extension and extension of the VAT cut, both measures which we have been calling to be extended for some time. The likelihood however, is that to fully safeguard our industry we will need to see both these measures extended further into 2022 and this is something that we will continue to push for with our friends and colleagues in UK wide trade associations.
To view further details of today’s UK Budget announcement, please click here.