Spring Statement 2025: Key announcements and insights

What did Chancellor Rachel Reeves announce in the Spring Statement?

Rachel Reeves today delivered her Spring Statement against a backdrop of a more uncertain world, both economically and politically. The Statement was badged as one to provide stability for the economy and security for working people, continuing the theme from Labour’s first Budget in the Autumn.

What are the Tax implications from the Spring Statement?

In line with her promise to only have one major fiscal event a year, no changes to taxation were announced.

Despite the fact no new tax changes were announced, we have not yet felt the effect of the Autumn Budget, with employer’s national insurance contributions increasing, and the starting threshold decreasing from 6 April. The national minimum wage will also increase from next month. The combined impact of these could lead to price increases, lower margins, or reduced recruitment as businesses try to manage the impact of these increased costs.

From a personal tax perspective, inheritance tax changes will come into force in April 2026, reducing the rate of agricultural and business property relief on assets over £1m, and from April 2027 most pension funds will become subject to inheritance tax. Further details on how you might be able to mitigate your inheritance tax position can be found here.

We have a number of events over the next few months explaining the impact of these changes, and the steps you could take to mitigate their effect. Details of these events can be found here.

The Chancellor did announce continued investment in tackling tax evasion, with a target to charge 20% more tax fraudsters per year, and collect an additional £1bn in tax.

National defence, welfare and infrastructure

There were significant announcements on investment in defence, delivering efficiency in government, reducing the welfare bill, spending on infrastructure and the potential impact on the future growth of the economy.

What is the UK’s economic growth forecast?

Whilst the forecasts for growth for the current year have been halved, from 2% to 1%, the forecast growth for 2026-2029 have been upgraded since the Autumn Budget.

Local investment

For our regions, yesterday saw the approval of a £9bn investment in the Lower Thames Crossing which will link Tilbury in Essex and Gravesend in Kent, which should ease the pressure at the Dartford Crossing, and today saw an announcement that the Naval dockyard in Portsmouth will be regenerated.

There may well be opportunities for businesses in these areas to become part of the supply chain for these significant projects.

More widely, the changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which should make it easier to build new houses, are expected to result in 1.3m new homes being built over the next 5 years, generating growth in the economy. It will be interesting to see whether these changes really do make planning easier, and whether developers consider potential projects to be financially viable.

In our regions, environmental concerns around water neutrality in Sussex and nutrient neutrality in Kent are currently slowing or preventing planning permission being granted for new developments, so the changes to the NPPF may not have any significant impact in these areas.

The next announcements we expect are the comprehensive spending review in June and the Budget in the Autumn, which we will cover in full.

If the announcement has raised any questions for you, our team would be happy to help. Get in touch with your usual Kreston Reeves content or contact us here.

We are also hosting two Finance focus webinars in June that will be covering recent and upcoming tax changes. Book your place here.

In the meantime, you can read more about the inheritance tax and national insurance changes referenced in this article, and other tax changes announced in the Autumn Budget, here.