Budget 2026: key points at a glance

John Healey has announced his first budget, here are the main points, with political analysis

Healey offers £100 payment to households to help navigate ‘global economic storms’

UK growth forecast for 2027 slashed despite Healey’s budget measures

John Healey starts by saying that his budget is “delivered at a time when global uncertainties and pressures are swirling worldwide and hitting people here at home”.

He says the administration will have a new approach, to steer us through global economic storms and give people fresh hope for Britain’s future.

He says it is an honour to deliver a budget as chancellor, before paying tribute to the fiscal discipline of his predecessor, Rachel Reeves. She took the difficult decisions required, he says.

Trade tensions are acting as a drag on global economic growth, as is the war in Iran, he says. The UK did not want this war, and it has driven up costs for British families through higher energy costs and higher interest rates.

Fiscal discipline is his first priority as chancellor, Healey says.

Peter Walker, senior political correspondent: A very immediate précis of the main political points of his first budget, with Healey talking up “breathing space” on the cost of living and a break from the Keir Starmer era, but also a mention of the “global uncertainties” which, and he cannot say this, might make his tweaks and changes slightly moot. This is set out more explicitly with a long section on the Iran war, and a note that the UK did not seek it.

Healey says he will meet the fiscal rule that day-to-day spending must be covered by tax receipts, and the investment rule that government debt, defined as public sector net financial liabilities, must be falling as a percentage of GDP in the third year of the forecast.

The government will have £15bn of headroom in 2029-30 and £22bn in 2030-31, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s forecaster.

Government borrowing will be 4.2% of GDP this year, 3.4% next year, then 2.9%, 2.1% and 1.8% by 2030-31, the OBR says.

Predictions of slowing growth were wrong, Healey says. The OBR says GDP will grow by 1.2% this year, 1% next year, 1.6% in 2028, 1.8% in 2029, 1.7% in 2030 and 1.6% in 2031. In March the OBR had predicted GDP growth of 1.1% in 2026, rising to 1.6% in 2027 and 2028, and dropping to 1.5% in 2029 and 2030.

Government debt is forecast to be 83.2% of GDP this year, 83.8% next year then falling to 83.1%, 82.3% and 81.7% in the following years.

PW: A statistics-rich part of the speech which is largely for economists and MPs, but Healey is at pains to argue that the government is treating the deficit seriously, which is a key element in trying to shape reaction. This section also brings the first joke in the speech, one which is, something now almost as traditional as a freeze of fuel duty, about Liz Truss and her mini budget.

Labour’s priority is cheaper energy, Healey says. He announces a series of measures to try to cut bills, including scrapping a levy on bills to fund hydrogen to lower bills and moving older renewables onto fixed-price contracts.

Healey says the government will extend a VAT cut through the winter and spring to July, taking £50 pounds off the annual price cap.

He confirms the government is abolishing standing charges on gas bills for 23m homes in a move it says will save two-thirds of households an average of £45 a year.

He says 20m households in council tax bands A to D will receive a £100 energy payment paid directly into bank accounts. It will cost £2.6bn, he says.

PW: A political balancing act from the chancellor, going from the “pragmatic, commonsense decision” to approve the Jackdaw gas field, not popular with all Labour MPs, with talk of being “unshakeably committed” to net zero and a course towards cheaper energy based on clean sources. But again the main commitment is on the cost of living, and the much-trailed plan to remove standing charges from gas bills, plus a small-to-mid-sized rabbit of a one-off £100 energy payment for smaller homes.

Fuel duty will be frozen for the 16th year in a row. Every government forecast over that time has pretended it will then rise in future years to raise more cash, only for the freeze to continue.

Healey increases the higher mileage rate for people who use their cars for work from £0.25 to £0.30 a mile.

Healey says he will remove import tariffs on more than 100 products, including baked beans, chocolate and gherkins, to reduce their shop prices, as trailed before the budget.

On paternity leave, self-employed fathers will be eligible for paternity leave pay for the first time.

Healey confirms that both the national minimum wage and the national living wage will rise by 3.9% in April. The national living wage, for over-21s, was set at £12.71 from April 2026, while the national minimum wage for people aged 18 to 20 was £10.85.

He confirms the removal of a “cliff edge” for carers’ allowance which left some people with debts in the thousands of pounds for accidentally claiming the benefit when they crossed an earnings threshold, in a policy trailed before the budget.

PW: A further freeze on fuel duty? Yes, yet again. The least surprising part of every recent budget.

Healey says he will increase the threshold for small business rate relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses from £12,000 to £18,000, giving a tax break to 70,000 smaller firms. Adult gaming centres and vape shops will not qualify.

On gambling, machine games duty will rise from 20% to 25% for higher stakes machines.

Online marketplace sellers will be targeted to ensure they are unable get around VAT.

PW: The state of local high streets is a hugely common complaint among voters and MPs alike, even if the causes of their decline are many and long-term. But more help with business rates for shops and hospitality businesses will be welcome and popular, and few outside the industry will complain about paying for it through higher taxes on gambling.

Healey says there will be new funding from HMRC to improve compliance and stronger powers to collect overdue tax from those who “can clearly afford to pay but ignore repeated contact”.

There will be no change on tax on income from dividends, and no change on tax to income from employment.

He says he will increase the rates of tax on income from property and savings by two percentage points from April 2027.

Healey confirms he will reverse his predecessor’s decision to cut the tax-free allowance on cash individual savings accounts (ISAs) from £20,000 to £12,000 a year from April.

Healey says he celebrates the role that banks play in the UK economy, but they will pay a 6% bank surcharge for 15 months from January, up from 3%. In a budget characterised by relative secrecy, raising taxes on banks was one of the policies that did leak out beforehand , although it was thought he might raise the surcharge to 8%.

PW: No big surprises here, with the bulk of the changes being technical or incremental. The one exception is the expected increase in the windfall tax on bank profits, which will be set aside to pay for measures to help with energy bills. With this comes a direct challenge from Healey to Kemi Badenoch, who speaks next: Does she back this or not?

The government will support Rolls-Royce to develop the next generation of engines for single-aisle passenger jets in the UK.

Healey gives an extra £20.4bn for the state-controlled national wealth fund and the British Business Bank to try to increase investment in growing companies. He says it will support 140,000 jobs.

He will re-establish the better regulation executive to “cut outdated regulations and admin burdens on business and on workers”.