Image source, Sky News

Over on Sky News, Danny Alexander has challenged Ed Balls to a three-way chancellors' debate, but the shadow chancellor laughed him off. Of course, this echoes Mr Balls' own throwing down of the gauntlet to George Osborne on the Andrew Marr programme last weekend.

Image source, Getty Images

Never ones to miss an opportunity, UKIP are taking advantage of the enormous media presence in Westminster this afternoon by driving this poster around the streets.

Anthony Browne
Chief executive, British Bankers' Association

Banks in the UK already pay more than £40bn in taxes each year, helping to fund schools and hospitals across the country. The bank levy imposes a significant cost on banking businesses in the UK, which is making many banks move work and jobs to other parts of the world, and is deterring international banks from investing in the UK. This major increase in the bank levy is likely to accelerate that process and damage the competitiveness of the UK economy. This will also further disadvantage UK headquartered banks by increasing tax on their overseas activities, while their competitors in those markets do not pay this tax at all.

Alan Armstrong emails: "Seems to me too little too late. It's amazing what rabbits are pulled out of the hat when the Tories are desperate for our vote. I certainly don't feel any recovery! Compared to other countries our minimum wage is a joke, it should be more like £8 or £9. I also want to see stamp duty scrapped and fuel duty reduced drastically."

The stock market appears to have given its seal of approval to the Budget - the FTSE 100 is up 1.4%. "This [is] going to be good for resource stocks, investment banks and funds," David Papier, head of sales trading at ETX Capital. But on the currency market, the pound fell against the dollar, hurt by earlier data on wage growth.

Patricia emails: "I'm a 58 years old, made redundant at 55. I have few expectations of finding a job at this age, so now I'm self employed and barely earning anything at all. I'm using my savings to survive, on which I've had almost no return during these three years. To me, all this lowering thresholds to pay income tax doesn't mean a thing. The only thing it will help me in this circumstances is a lower VAT rate. Not impressed."

Image source, Getty Images

Andrew Gimson, of Conservative Home, feels the chancellor's desire to attack Labour detracted from his message on the economy. In his Budget sketch, external, Mr Grimson writes: "Whatever else this Budget is supposed to achieve, it is meant as a demolition job on the Labour Party." He goes on: "But the regrettable thing about all this anger was that it rather detracted from the impressive story which the Chancellor has to tell."

BBC News Channel

The BBC's Northern Ireland economics and business correspondent, John Campbell, says it's estimated that there will be about 3,000 people who could benefit from the new Help-to-Buy ISA, and that about 100,000 people will be taken out of the tax net.

Malcolm Webb
Chief executive, Oil & Gas UK

Today's announcement lays the foundations for the regeneration of the UK North Sea. The industry itself must now build on this by delivering the cost and efficiency improvements required to secure its competitiveness. These measures send exactly the right signal to investors. They properly reflect the needs of this maturing oil and gas province and will allow the UK to compete internationally for investment.

Alex Bailey emailed his views about extra funding for church building repairs: "Surely our hard earned taxes should be going to something other than repairing church roofs?"

Paul Rowley
Political correspondent

Image source, PA

Just because George Osborne said "I have no changes to make to the duties on tobacco and gaming already announced" doesn't mean that the price of cigarettes isn't going up. The Treasury has confirmed the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes will go up by 16p from 6pm tonight. It's part of the longstanding formula that the price rises by 2% above retail price index inflation.

Norman Smith
assistant political editor, BBC News Channel

Treasury sources reject OBR claim of "roller coaster" cuts - saying OBR figures take no account of welfare cuts #budget2015

tweets:, external Government has failed on deficit target, Chancellor has pushed all his targets back creating long grass economic plan #Budget2015

BBC News Channel

Katja Hall, deputy director-general of the CBI employers' group, is not happy the chancellor raising more tax from banks. She tells the BBC: "Banks, like any business, will be concerned about constant changes to the tax system, and that could start to have an impact on investment. This is not an welcome initiative by the chancellor."

Robert Chote, chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, is giving his post-Budget press conference. He highlights that the chancellor has pledged a slightly tighter squeeze on spending through to 2018/19 and a slightly looser one in 2019/2020. That means total spending is no longer on course to be the lowest, as a share of GDP, since before the war.

The Local Government Association's response to the Budget paints a bleak picture. "Between the chancellor's first Budget in 2010 and the end of the next financial year, the money government gives to councils to provide local services will have fallen by 40%, chair Cllr David Sparks says. "Local authorities have played a huge role in balancing the country's books, but more of the same cannot be an option in the next five years." He calls on the next government to protect funding for local services and tackle "the adult social care crisis".

The Greens' leader, Natalie Bennett, says her party's answer is more investment, not growth. "It's not like our current growth economy has delivered for people's lives," she says. "What we need to do is invest in a huge range of things." These include the NHS, education and 500,000 new homes for social rent over the term of the next parliament.

UKIP's Patrick O'Flynn links his party's immigration message to the Budget. "Completely untrammelled migration of unskilled and semi-skilled people is compressing wages for working class people, so even these tax breaks will be swallowed up," he says. "We've stopped being an economy where most people can have a pay rise most years."

The hashtag #climate is gaining in momentum with over 300 people using it in the last hour.

Julia McClelland gave her reaction: "All this saying how wonderful this budget is, but yet again the rich get richer and the poorer get poorer! How can he raise the threshold to pay the higher rate tax, when he is cutting services? Who will suffer? The vulnerable people who rely on care. Yes, wonderful this new savings incentive if you have any money to save - lots of people haven't got money to live on!"