Rapleys’ experts react to the Chancellor’s 2025 budget

Daniel Cook, Partner and Head of Automotive, Roadside and Future Fuels at Rapleys, said: “The tax on EVs is clearly there to make up for the fall in fuel duty as drivers move away from petrol/diesel cars. Firstly, in the A&R industry we have seen a circling back to traditional fuel cars with fuel margins still high. Secondly, the Government has spent the last few years telling people to move to EVs, so adding tax to them is probably not helpful. Thirdly, there remains a huge lack of coordinated government strategy for charging points. Most of these are largely down to operators and their consultants to roll out location by location but, if we are serious about having large numbers of EVs on the road over the next few years, this needs supercharging so that the infrastructure is there (and ideally, not extra taxation).”

Nik Moore, Head of Business Rates at Rapleys, said: “Whilst there is little detail to date, the Chancellor’s proposed reforms to business rates should give a boost to retail, hospitality and leisure with a proposed ‘permanently lower’ burden (UBR) set off by increasing the rates paid on other forms of commercial property with a rateable value of over £500,000. This will impact industrial & logistics property, with warehouses owned by online giants used as an example, and offices with coworking and flex developments potentially seeing pain, but also less obviously supermarkets, including the majority of those owned by the German discounters. The “one size fits all” approach to the £500,000 threshold will doubtless mean pain is widely felt, and will contribute to additional inflation.”

Angus Irvine, Partner in Residential at Rapleys, said: “The Chancellor’s measures on mansion tax will slow the market down in and around this bracket as people will hold on until a regime change. Anyone with a house over £2m will be particularly anxious with thousands more a year to pay. Some may want to sell, but will people want to buy and put themselves in that position? Whilst this may seem like an easy win for the Government – as said, we need balance in the market and if people don’t sell at the higher end, it doesn’t filter down to other segments.”

Jason Lowes, Planning Partner at Rapleys said: “Unsurprisingly there was little new detail linked to Planning in today’s Chancellor’s Statement given wide-spread announcements last week. However, there was mention of boosting talent and skills in planning, which is to be welcomed through collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce. There has long been a shortage of planners and it is not clear how many of the 300 new planning officers proposed over a year ago are in place – so anything that helps this is useful. The only other mention on planning was how the Government has widely reformed the entire planning system to get Britain building again, the merits of which we are yet to see come through into delivery.”