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Unlike the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage, the rate is not a legal requirement and is voluntary.

Over 15,000 UK businesses voluntarily pay it because they believe their staff deserve a wage that meets everyday needs.

Those working for employers subscribed to the scheme can expect to earn £12 an hour or £13.15 an hour is they’re based in London

By Ryan Sabey, Deputy Political Editor

RACHEL Reeves will be grilled in a special Budget edition of The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots show today.

Our Political Editor Harry Cole will put the Chancellor on the spot shortly after she’s finished delivering her crucial address in the House of Commons.

It will be available to watch on thesun.co.uk, YouTube and Sun social channels at 5.30pm.

Topics will include her decision on whether to spare motorists a fuel duty rise, and the expected eye-watering tax rises she will impose.

Since its launch earlier this year, NMTB has cemented its place at the heart of British politics.

During the General Election campaign The Sun was the only print publisher to host back-to-back grillings of Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer.

Footage from The Election Showdown has been viewed over 15 million times.

NMTB has also featured interviews with ex-PMs Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, as well as senior politicians Nigel Farage, James Cleverly, Wes Streeting, Steve Reed and Bridget Phillipson

By Harry Goodwin

Today is the first Labour budget for 14 years – and the first ever to be delivered by a female Chancellor.

Brits are bracing for a raft of tax hikes as Rachel Reeves tries to plug the “£22billion black hole” she says she’s found in government accounts.

Here are five other budgets which have caused a stir over the years.

1979 – Geoffrey Howe, Conservative

Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor Geoffrey Howe slashed both the top rate of income tax and the standard rate.

He also doubled VAT – shifting the tax burden from income to consumption in a huge change for Brits.

Howe also eased controls on foreign exchange in a bid to control inflation.

The budget signalled a massive break from the last Labour government and set the pattern for decades to come.

1988 – Nigel Lawson, Conservative

Nigel Lawson (dad to domestic goddess Nigella) massively slashed income tax again.

The deputy Commons speaker twice cleared the chamber amid noisy protests from Labour MPs slamming the tax cuts.

Lawson also set off a property bonanza by announcing an end to double mortgage tax relief for couples buying homes.

1993 – Norman Lamont, Conservative

In March 1993 the economy was still reeling from Black Wednesday, when the pound crashed out of the European exchange rate mechanism.

Lamont announced tax rises including VAT on domestic gas and electricity.

Later that year Lamont’s successor Ken Clarke froze personal tax allowance and brought in stealth taxes on insurance and plane passengers.

The Lamont and Clarke budgets marked the end of the Tories’s scything tax cuts – and set the stage for Labour’s return to office in 1997.

2002 – Gordon Brown, Labour

Brown raised national insurance by a penny on the pound to fund higher spending on the NHS.

The future PM had fretted over a possible backlash from voters who had re-elected Labour in 2001.

But he managed to pull off the largest rise in health spending in the history of the NHS.

2009 – Alistair Darling, Labour

Labour’s last budget before today came amid the credit crunch and soaring unemployment.

Darling ramped up taxes and borrowing in a bid to fill up draining Treasury coffers.

Tory leader David Cameron blasted Labour’s ‘utter mess’ – and was in power a year later.

2022 – Kwasi Kwarteng, Conservative

Kwarteng unveiled his economic package less than a month after becoming Liz Truss’s Chancellor.

Technically, it was a fiscal statement rather than a budget – but it turned out to be just as seismic.

Rising Tory star Kwarteng announced £45billion in tax cuts including a drop in all rates of income tax.

Markets took frights and the pound went into freefall before the Bank of England waded in to stop a run on UK pension funds.

Mortgage rates soared and Kwarteng was out of the job just three weeks later.

By Ryan Sabey, Deputy Political Editor

RACHEL Reeves will be grilled in a special Budget edition of The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots show today.

Our Political Editor Harry Cole will put the Chancellor on the spot shortly after she’s finished delivering her crucial address in the House of Commons.

It will be available to watch on thesun.co.uk, YouTube and Sun social channels at 5.30pm.

Topics will include her decision on whether to spare motorists a fuel duty rise, and the expected eye-watering tax rises she will impose.

Since its launch earlier this year, NMTB has cemented its place at the heart of British politics.

During the General Election campaign The Sun was the only print publisher to host back-to-back grillings of Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer.

Footage from The Election Showdown has been viewed over 15 million times.

NMTB has also featured interviews with ex-PMs Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, as well as senior politicians Nigel Farage, James Cleverly, Wes Streeting, Steve Reed and Bridget Phillipson

CARER’S allowance is a UK benefit designed to help people who have caring responsibilities for more than 35 hours each week.

Those eligible get £81.90 a week paid directly into bank accounts.

To qualify, the person you care for must already get one of these benefits:

• Personal independence payment (PIP) – daily living component
• Disability living allowance – the middle or highest care rate
• Attendance allowance
• Constant attendance allowance at or above the normal maximum rate with an Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
• Constant attendance allowance at the basic (full day) rate with a war disablement pension
• Armed forces independence payment

You don’t have to be related to the person or live with them to apply.

But if you share caring responsibilities with someone else, only one of you can make a claim.

The type of care you provide can vary, but includes things such as helping with washing or cooking, taking the person to medical appointments or helping out with household tasks such as shopping or organising bills.

To get the benefit, you must also meet a certain set of criteria:

• You must be 16 or over
• You have to spend at least 35 hours a week caring for someone
• You need to have been in England, Scotland or Wales for at least two of the last three years (this does not apply if you’re a refugee or have humanitarian protection status)
• You must normally live in England, Scotland or Wales or live abroad as a member of the armed forces (you might still be eligible if you’re moving to or already living in an EEA country or Switzerland)
• You cannot be in full-time education
• You must not be studying for 21 hours a week or more
• You cannot be subject to immigration control
• You will also have to meet certain earnings criteria in order to get the benefit.

Your earnings must also be £151 or less a week after tax, National Insurance and expenses.

You can apply for the carer’s allowance online by visiting www.gov.uk/carers-allowance/how-to-claim.