Submit a question on what the budget means for you below – that’s our focus here in Money. Follow the budget live in the Politics Hub.
Wednesday 26 November 2025 16:17, UK
I’m an unpaid carer looking after my severely disabled son and mentally-ill wife, I get a whopping £83.80 for this a week. If I wasn’t here doing it how much would it cost the government? If this was a 40 hour-a-week job (which it isn’t) I’d be earning just under £2.10 an hour…
StewartG
Thank you for your comment, Stewart.
I think a lot of readers will have a great deal of empathy for you.
To be eligible for carer’s allowance (or the carer support payment in Scotland) you must:
The maximum benefit, as you state, is £83.30 a week. This is expected to rise to £86.47 next April, based on September’s 3.8% inflation rate.
According to the Kings Fund, a charity and think tank, the average cost of a local authority-funded care home place for someone aged over 65 was £951 a week in 2023-24. For working-age adults, the cost was £1,540 a week. In 2023-24, local authorities paid £22.03 an hour on average to commission externally provided home care services.
This isn’t an exhaustive answer to your question, of course – but it illustrates the point I think you’re trying to make about the lack of support for family and friends who give up their lives as they know it to care for loved ones.
Carers were addressed in today’s budget – I’ll leave you to decide if any of these three measures help you much…
You may already be aware that Carers UK offers advice and support for people like you – find them here.
The struggles of carers is a story our correspondent Dan Whitehead has done a lot of work on…
Does anything announced today affect inheritance tax?
Debbie Howarth
Malli Kini, partner at Blick Rothenberg, answers this one for the Money blog…
The only changes announced today were that infected blood scandal payments would be free of inheritance tax.
There will also now be an ability to transfer any unused business relief and agricultural property relief cap (will be £1m from April 2026) between spouses.
The legislation hadn’t been published at the time of writing but I presume this to be on the death of one spouse.
Drivers of electric cars will be hit by a 3p per mile tax from April 2028, Rachel Reeves has announced.
Hybrid vehicle drivers will be charged 1.5p, she says.
It will be payable each year alongside vehicle excise duty.
“All cars contribute to the wear and tear on our roads,” she says.
The charge is set to rise annually with inflation, according to the leaked OBR document, and adds 0.1% to overall inflation.
Meanwhile, the threshold for the expensive car supplement will be increased to £50,000, saving one million motorists £440 a year, says Reeves.
And she announces more funding for the electric car grant, a purchase discount currently worth up to £3,750, extending it to 2030 with a total of £2bn in spending.
“We note the government hasn’t cut VAT on public charging from 20% to 5% to match the rate levied on domestic electricity,” says RAC head of policy Simon Williams.
“This means drivers who can’t charge at home will continue to pay more.”
Taxing all plug-in vehicles per mile could slow down the transition to electric, he adds.
“This is no doubt why it has expanded the Electric Car Grant.”
He says fuel duty receipts are set to decline as more electric vehicles hit the road, and the chancellor wants to offset that loss to the Treasury.
Has capital gains tax been changed at all today?
Jaydon
Ian Rand, chief executive of Monument Bank, answers this one for the Money blog...
No, the chancellor has not made major structural changes to capital gains tax (CGT) in this budget.
For many long-term investors, homeowners with modest portfolios and small business owners, that will come as a relief as predictability matters.
However, it is important to acknowledge the wider context.
CGT allowances have been frozen for several years, and when thresholds stay fixed while asset values rise, more people end up paying more tax even though nothing has changed in their behaviour.
The government has indicated that these freezes will continue for another three years, which is an unusually long period.
I have £20,000 in a cash ISA with Skipton. Will I now be charged interest on £8,000? I am a low rate tax payer.
Deborah
Philly Ponniah, chartered wealth manager and financial coach at Philly Financial, answers this question for the Money blog…
You won’t be charged tax or interest on any of the money that’s already in your ISA. Your full £20,000 stays tax-free. That doesn’t change.
The rule is about how much you can put in each year from now on. It’s not about taking money away from what you already saved.
The new rule starts in April 2027. From that point, people under 65 will only be able to put up to £12,000 a year into a cash ISA.
It does not change the money you already have inside your ISA. It doesn’t shrink it or make any part of it taxable. It just means that in future years you can’t add as much.
And because you’re a low-rate taxpayer, your existing ISA money stays fully protected (as it would for any tax rate payer), and your personal savings allowance applies to anything outside the ISA.
I employ 15 people at a garden centre. How will I need to act after today’s salary sacrifice announcement?
Keith
Malli Kini, partner at Blick Rothenberg, answers this one for the Money blog...
The changes are that the salary sacrifice into pension scheme will be limited to £2,000 from April 2029.
This means any amount above this will be subject to both employer and employee national insurance.
As an employer this will complicate how you administer these changes and how you remunerate employees going forward.
Also current employee contracts discussing salary sacrifice may need to be reviewed and amended.
Income tax thresholds have been frozen for longer than expected.
The thresholds will be frozen until the end of the 2030-31 financial year. Previous reports had suggested they would be frozen until 2029-30.
The move is expected to raise £7.6bn in 2029-30, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The headline rate of income tax has not been increased, but by extending the freeze of income tax thresholds for another two years, Britons will may more.
That’s because while the salary point at which someone starts paying income tax remains the same, earnings are likely to go up. So, a great proportion of people’s earnings are subject to tax.
Data and economics editor Ed Conway says that in practice, it means 64% of a median income salary would be subject to tax by 2030. In 2019 this was 52%.
Conway explains this ‘fiscal drag’ in this video (scroll to 4m 22s)
It’s worth stating that this is a policy the Tories were criticised after introducing the freeze in 2022.
More people dragged into paying tax or higher rates
The Office for Budget Responsibility said the freeze in tax thresholds would result in 780,000 more basic-rate, 920,000 more higher-rate and 4,000 more additional-rate income tax payers in 2029-30.
This won’t just effect high earners, it also means more minimum wage workers will earn over the personal allowance and be subject to income tax.
Such a worker would only need to work 18 hours a week to be taxed – in 2016 that was 31 hours.
A final group impacted is pensioners – frozen thresholds mean more are pushed into paying tax on their retirement income.
Here’s a reminder of the different UK tax bands…
I work for a cleaners in the South West. This year when the minimum wage went up, my employer refused to give me and my eight colleagues a rise, saying we had to accept it or some of us would lose our jobs. What can we do if she does the same this year?
Anonymous
Thank you for your question – you actually left your name but we thought it better to keep it anonymous.
This is coming up because it’s been confirmed that from next April, the national living wage will increase to £12.71 (up 4.1%) and the wage for 18 to 20-year-olds will increase to £10.85 (an increase of 8.5%).
It’s an issue I looked at last year.
There are several ways to solve the problem, from an informal chat to an employment tribunal.
However you do it, keep “as much information to hand as possible”, Lucie Garvin, from the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, told me.
This could include payslips, bank statements, receipts and dates when issues were noticed and steps taken.
Informally
“It’s usually best to raise it informally with your employer first,” Garvin said.
“It may be a genuine error, and a casual conversation might resolve the issue.”
But there are some excuses to watch out for, as Garvin explained.
The following do not contribute to your salary:
“Your employer should still be paying you at least the minimum even if you are receiving perks such as these,” said Garvin.
Formal grievance
If you are still not being paid the correct amount after raising the issue, you can make a formal complaint to your boss.
“Some people might find it quite a daunting idea to raise a concern with their employer, but sometimes it’s a genuine mistake they did not realise has been made,” Garvin said.
“Talking to the employer informally or sending them a more formal letter or email can be enough to highlight the issue and get it resolved.”
HMRC or tribunal
People who feel they are not able to approach their employer themselves or who try without success can raise the issue with HMRC’s national minimum wage enforcement team, or by making a claim to an employment tribunal.
Importantly, they cannot do both.
“There are also strict time limits for making a claim to an employment tribunal,” said Garvin.
Single payment: If there was a single underpayment or non-payment, you have three months minus one day from the date you should have been paid to make a claim.
Multiple payments: If there were several in a row, you have three months minus one day from the most recent incorrect deduction.
Even for a budget, tax has very much been the watchword of the day.
As our economics and data editor Ed Conway says: “The big picture here is lots more taxes.”
To put that in historical context, the Institute for Fiscal Studies warns:
“If there were an election tomorrow, more net tax increases would have been announced in this parliament than in any other since at least 1970.”
Labour could still cut taxes later in the parliament, bringing the net increases down overall, and may hope to do so ahead of an election.
But it’s not a promising sign for the government.
I live in an inherited family home in Islington that is worth just over £2m – when I inherited it many years ago it was valued in the low six figures. I have been saying I’ll downsize for many years. What kind of tax implications do I need to be thinking about and how has today changed things for me?
Janet P
Malli Kini, partner at Blick Rothenberg, answers this one for the Money blog…
There is a new high value council tax surcharge for owners of residential property in England worth £2m or more in 2026, taking effect in April 2028.
A public consultation on details relating to the surcharge will be held in early 2026.
This will be in addition to council tax. Your inherited home would be in the £2m-£2.5m band, which would be subject to a £2,500 annual charge.
If you were to sell the home, then you have time to do so before the changes come in.
However, be mindful about pricing and additional negotiations from buyers who will be subject to the charge.
Other things to consider would be capital gains tax on any increase in the value from when you inherited the property – which may not be an issue should this be your main home.
Also, the value of the property less the mortgage would be within your estate for inheritance tax purposes.
You should speak with an estate agent and obtain proper tax advice before you make a decision.
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