Autumn Budget 2025: family finances squeezed, welfare rules eased

Mace | 29th November 2025 | Comment, Uncategorised
ADD IMAGE HERE - 2025-11-29T121403.286

After weeks of tax rumour and expectation-setting, the 26 November Budget landed as a welfare-first package that lifts the benefits cap but tightens the screw on household incomes, property and education.

Nobody can say they were not prepared for the Budget on 26 November. Almost daily, Rachel Reeves’ aides dropped suggestions for further tax rises, from new property taxes to removing the family home allowance from inheritance tax, to extending National Insurance to rental income. It was rumoured that the Chancellor would cut the Gordian knot and abandon Labour’s manifesto promise not to raise income tax rates. Then came the reversal. After the Budget, even Labour-aligned analysts at the Resolution Foundation, the think tank chaired by pensions minister Torsten Bell, indicated that Reeves would have been better off coming clean and raising headline rates outright, rather than presiding over a Budget described by critics as one of political illusion, which has broken multiple promises not to raise taxes for ‘working people’. Working people, it turns out, are not the only demographic in retreat. Against the backdrop of stagnant productivity, the Budget offered a markedly more generous set...

Subscribe to The Mace

Join the member community shaping British politics and stay ahead of what's really happening in the world of politics and public affairs, with expert analysis, breaking news, and insider insights from Westminster and Brussels. The Mace is the leading news source and resource for the government affairs industry, offering required reading and lobby intelligence for professionals.

To see what you are missing out on by not subscribing to The Mace, click here to download our full membership info-pack. This includes having no paywall on op-ed content or profiles/interviews, allowing professional profiles to be read with maximum impact and visibility by government, special advisers, MPs, peers, civil servants, and policy and political decision-makers.



The government wants to make it harder for businesses to say no to WFH – what does this mean for young people?

Lucy Carrier-Pilkington | September 17, 2026

The new government protocol raises concerns about whether young people are getting the necessary exposure they need in their early careers 

The existential threat AI poses for the free press

Lucy Carrier-Pilkington | September 16, 2026

What happens when the technology that could one day threaten humanity begins to destroy the institution responsible for warning us about it?

Leader in UK Public Affairs: Dr Michelle Howard, Senior Advisor for Defence and Space, Lexington Communications: “The future of public affairs is full of promise for the creative”

Mace | September 16, 2026

Lexington’s Michelle Howard explains how an unconventional career spanning opera, journalism, hydropower and defence led her into public affairs, why political instability rewards creativity and listening, and what

Death of the British staycation

Mace Magazine | September 15, 2026

The government's new 5% tourism tax is the last thing the UK's hospitality sector needs, says William Cash

The exodus of the super-wealthy: Who pays the price?  

Lucy Carrier-Pilkington | September 8, 2026

As speculation mounts over further tax rises, Britain’s ultra-rich investors and job creators are choosing to take their wealth elsewhere.

The Economic Paradox: Can Britain Afford to Penalise Parenthood?

Robert Richardson | September 8, 2026

In an exclusive op-ed for Mace, hospitality industry leader Robert Richardson sets out why the sector must do more to become accessible to young families.

The Politics of Power 

Simon Francis | September 7, 2026

End Fuel Poverty Coalition coordinator Simon Francis examines the four stories politicians hear about electricity and gas, and argues that the fight over which story shapes the agenda

A “little local difficulty” – Gawain Towler’s Reform Conference Diary

Mace Magazine | September 5, 2026

Seasoned Farage aide-de-camp Gawain Towler reflects on Reform's first ever Business Day at the NEC - and what it's like when a media grenade goes off during the

Farmers have suffered enough this summer — it’s time the government got on side

John Cooper | August 27, 2026

Britain’s farmers have battled repeated heatwaves and droughts, but MP John Cooper says the government’s Family Farm Tax is piling further pressure on an industry that desperately needs

It’s not a popularity contest: The case for protecting Meghan and Harry 

Lucy Carrier-Pilkington | August 25, 2026

You don’t have to like the Sussexes to believe the government has a duty to protect them.