She also confirmed another hike to employee wages meaning businesses will foot the bill once more while all national insurance contributions – from both employers or employees – will remain unchanged.
Free apprenticeships, which pubs will be able to take advantage of, were announced by Reeves during a raucous Autumn Budget.
She said there had been a review over the rise in youth inactivity and announced: “I’m grateful to the Federation of Small Businesses and Small Business Britain for their representations on apprenticeships.
Completely free
“And today, I am announcing funding to make the training for under-25 apprenticeship completely free for small and medium size enterprises.”
On employee wages, Reeves confirmed what had previously been reported by The Morning Advertiser.
She told the House of Commons: “At the election, we promised a genuine living wage and we are delivering it.
Doing the same this year
“At the Budget last year, I increased the national living wage and national minimum wage and I am doing the same this year too – accepting the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission in full and increasing the minimum wage for 18 to 20- year-olds from £10 to 10.85 and hour and increasing the living wage from £12.21 to £12.71 an hour."
Meanwhile, Reeves, who pushed the amount businesses would have to pay for employer NICs up by 1.2 percentage points so it would reach 15% in last year’s Autumn Budget, confirmed there would be no changes to this policy.
“As a result of the tax reforms I have made today, I can confirm that I will not be increasing national insurance, basic, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT.”
“I have kept everyone’s contributions as low as possible.”
