According to the full Spring Statement report, in 2021 SMEs made up 61 per cent of the UK’s private sector employment, supporting 16.3m people. This is something the government has identified as a “priority” for support.
Sunak outlined what sounded like an Employment Allowance rise of £5,000, but the increase is actually only £1000 – a repeat of their mid-pandemic April 2020 rise.
Sunak’s £5,000 figure is a little more backdated than he let on too.
In April 2015, it was reformed to exclude employers of personal or domestic staff (except care or support workers) and from April 2016, the value of the relief was increased to £3,000 and single director companies were excluded.
It saw further fiddling in April 2020 to restrict access to employers whose National Insurance Contributions liability in the previous tax year was under £100k, and upped it to £4,000.
The latest rise is due to come into effect in the new tax year April 2022.
