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Over 25 million adults in the UK, including the majority of those in the most vulnerable category, have now had their first injection against Covid-19. With the entire adult population due to have their first jab by July this year, it feels more hopeful than ever that lockdown can lift this summer.

Now pupils are back at school and a testing system for students is in place, it finally feels appropriate to start planning ahead. To help you do that, we take a look back at our year of living through a pandemic and consider ways to prepare for a similar crisis.

In mid-February the Treasury announced that “To allow for more transparency and scrutiny, documents and consultations that would traditionally be published at a Budget will be published on 23 March”. It was far from clear what would, or would not, emerge just 20 days after Rishi Sunak’s first Budget of 2021.

The leading review site for financial advisers, VouchedFor, will be publishing their annual Guide to the UK’s Top Rated Advisers this weekend (10^th April 2021) and we are delighted that two of our advisers will once again appear. The guide is distributed in The Times and can also be found online here.

UK employees contributed less to workplace pensions last year, as the financial effects of the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Employee contributions into pension plans fell by 11% from April to June 2020 compared with the previous three months, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) data. Over the same period, which coincides with the first Covid-19 lockdown, employer contributions also fell by 5%. During this time, many people’s pension contributions were maintained by the government’s furlough scheme.

The UK’s best-selling car for three months in 2020 did not even have an engine.  

The top-selling car in the UK for the months of April, May and December last year was a Tesla Model 3, a car that currently costs just over £43,000. One major reason for Tesla’s popularity is tax. For 2020/21, the employee who chose a zero-emission company car like the electric Tesla paid no company car tax. A BMW 3 series of the same value would have cost a higher rate taxpayer up to £5,200 in tax.

Millions, billions and even trillions now make the headlines, but what do all those zeros really mean, and what will they buy?

You may think you know your billion from your trillion, but it’s not quite so simple.

• One billion is now 1,000 million – 1,000,000,000. Pre-1974, in the UK it was one million million.
• One trillion is normally now taken to be 1,000 billion – 1,000,000,000,000.

One million is no longer as impressive a figure as it used to be. For example:

The main state pensions will have risen faster than inflation by April 2021, but these state benefits are still low compared with even average earnings. 

The new state pension (for those who qualify and reached state pension age (SPA) after 5 April 2016) will rise to £179.60 a week in April 2021 and the old (basic) state pension (for those who reached SPA earlier) will be £137.60 a week. Both increases are 2.5%, a rate secured by the so-called ‘Triple Lock’, which requires these pensions to rise by the greater of:

Renewed interest since the outbreak of Covid-19 in more responsible and sustainable investment products has seen a significant increase in the amount flowing into funds that explicitly take account of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, alongside conventional financial metrics.

As we pass the various one-year anniversaries around the Covid-19 pandemic, there are some useful lessons to draw for your financial planning.

On the same day that Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced Covid-19 support measures in his first Budget, the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic. Since then, Mr Sunak has regularly returned to Parliament to announce further support schemes.

If you take a step back, the pandemic experience has offered some important financial lessons.

The value of an up-to-date will

The first of two Budgets in 2021 signals larger tax bills to come.

Once upon a time, the concept of ‘Budget Purdah’ meant that very little of a Budget’s contents trickled out before the day. The latest Budget on 3 March underlined how far that principle has been eroded. Despite extensive coverage, some rumours proved true, others didn’t materialise and Mr Sunak still had some surprises.

Income tax