Katy Austin
Transport correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

In theory, fuel duty should go up every year - but it's been frozen since 2011.

In March this year, however, then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak cut fuel duty on petrol and diesel by 5p per litre, from about 58p to 53p. That cut was temporary and is due to end next March.

It was introduced after a period of sustained price rises at the pump. Prices did then come down a bit - only to shoot up to record highs in the summer before easing a bit more recently.

Data from Experian says petrol now costs on average 163.99p a litre, a few pennies below the level it was at the Spring Statement. Diesel is at 188.42p, about 8p higher than in March.

Today, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said in its latest forecast that it was expecting a 23% increase in the fuel duty rate next year, adding 12p to petrol and diesel prices - and bringing in about £5.7bn in extra taxes.

However, this is does not mean government policy has changed.

That OBR projection assumes the temporary cut will end, and a rise will go ahead. But there is still plenty of time for the government to freeze fuel duty again - if it chooses to.

The Treasury said a final decision will be made at the Budget in the spring.

Hashim Norat runs a coffee shop and warm space in Gloucester, he feels the Autumn Statement didn't go far enough.

Although he feels it's right to increase the tax paid by higher earners, he didn't hear anything that will help combat the "serious problems" with food poverty.

Speaking to Radio 5 Live, he says his café is feeding 40 people for free each day and are providing hot meals to more than 80 people four nights a week.

He says:

Eleanor Lawrie & Michael Buchanan
BBC Social Affairs Team

It’s a cold and drizzly day in Cluny Square, in Southend-on-Sea, and the streets are quiet. But in the local community cafe, manager Wendy Wilson is celebrating.

A single mum and long-term Tory voter, she has been hit hard by rising bills and prices and recently had to give up her beloved dogs for adoption to cut costs.

But as a worker on the minimum wage who gets universal credit and lives in social housing, she feels she is one of the winners from the Autumn Statement.

"I'm quite overwhelmed actually, you know the minimum wage stuff is going to help, and the benefits rise because it will match what's going on in the shops, so yes it's happy days," she says.

Image source, Getty Images

Charities have welcomed the decision to raise benefits in line with inflation, the rise to the living wage and payments for low income households.

But they have also raised various concerns, with Dame Clare Moriarty, chief executive of Citizens Advice, warning that "many will still fall through the cracks".

Emma Revie, Chief Executive of food bank charity the Trussell Trust, urged the government to find a way of bridging the gap between cost of living payments, made to lower income households in November, and the benefit rise that will come into force in April.

She said: "We know many people are already in financial crisis now and, for them, April will feel very far away.

"Rising costs and historically low levels of social security mean that, despite the support provided so far, thousands of people are already having to go without the essentials."

The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, announced an extra £2.3bn in funding for schools in 2023 and 2024 as part of his Autumn Statement.

Emma Bradley is a school governor and mum of three, she says although more money will be going into schools, she doesn’t think the economic plans went "anywhere near far enough" to help people.

Speaking to Radio 5 Live, she says her school has "real deficit budgets, we’ve been struggling in schools for a long time and this is just going to hold the line".

As the cost of living continues to rise, Emma says schools are having to help struggling families.

"[They’re] having to do so much more than educating our children… people aren’t able to afford school meals, so schools are having to bridge the gap," she adds.

Hazel Shearing
Education correspondent

Image source, PA Media

More investment in a "public service that defines all our futures". That's the chancellor's approach to funding schools in England. Jeremy Hunt has promised an extra £2.3bn per year for schools for the next two years.

School leaders say it sounds like positive news, but they'll be looking closely at the detail.

Among the financial pressures facing schools is the government's promise of a 5% pay rise for most teachers - which they have to find cash for in existing budgets. And they have to help pupils catch up after school closures during the pandemic.

School spending per pupil dropped in real terms during the 2010s. Today's cash increase means that it will be back at where it was 12 years ago, according to analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

School funding, the think tank says, is now predicted to be greater than the growth in schools' costs. But the question teachers will still be asking is: will it be enough to take on all the challenges they face?

Read more from our specialist correspondents here.

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

Image source, PA Media

The budget for the NHS in England was already due to increase by nearly £5bn next year to more than £157bn. A similar rise was planned the following year - the final one of a five-year settlement agreed under Theresa May's government.

But despite this, NHS bosses had warned the health service was still facing a £7bn shortfall in 2023-24 because of inflationary pressures. So by giving an extra £3.3bn next year - and the same the following year - the chancellor has gone some way to plugging the gap.

The boost in funding has been welcomed by NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard. But huge challenges remain.

The NHS is desperately short of staff - one in 10 posts are vacant - while the backlog in cancer care and hospital treatment continues to grow.

These problems cannot be solved by money alone. They require more staff to be trained and equipment and buildings to be upgraded - things that can take many years to achieve.

Read more from Nick, and our other specialists, here.

Michael Buchanan
Social Affairs Correspondent

Most budget announcements since 2010 have been bad news for people on low incomes – benefits have failed to keep pace with inflation in nine out of the past 12 years.

Inflation is also higher for people on low incomes as they spend more of their money on food and energy.

The decision to raise the benefit cap - the limit on how much a household can receive in welfare payments - by inflation will also help an increasing number of people.

This cap - £20,000 outside of London, £23,000 in the capital – has been frozen at the same level since 2016, meaning more and more people had hit the ceiling.

All these measures won’t come in until next April, so for many the winter will still be very difficult, but as one woman said to me today, the Autumn Statement gives us hope that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

After the chancellor delivered his statement this morning, the Office for Budget Responsibility put out some gloomy predictions about living standards - it says household income will fall by 7% over the next 18 months.

And the organisation's chair, Richard Hughes, has been speaking to BBC Radio 4's PM programme about that.

"We've seen a big spike in gas prices driven by Russia squeezing Europe's energy supply -that's pushing up inflation to a 40-year peak of 11% this year," he says.

"Wages aren't keeping up with inflation, that's pushing up our cost of living and because we don't produce energy here in the UK, it's not pushing up our wages and it means our overall livings standards fall."

He says prices are going up by 11% but wages are only going up by "four, five or six percent," causing a big squeeze on living standards.

"That means over next the next two years, living standards are set to fall by 7% - that's the biggest two-year fall in living standards in the UK since records began in 1950," he says.

Image source, Reuters

In the last hour, we've been hearing from Torsten Bell, who's chief executive of the think tank Resolution Foundation, which aims to improve living standards of lower income families.

Asked if Chancellor Jeremy Hunt succeeded in keeping the balance between helping vulnerable members of society, and taking from those who are better off, Bell is frank in his response.

"We're all losers", because of the state of the economy, he tells BBC Radio 4's PM programme. Generally, the picture is "we're all getting poorer", he says.

But Bell acknowledges that the majority of Hunt's measures will impact middle and high income households.

Have a look at what the statement means for you here.

Liz Truss, the shortest-serving British prime minister, was ousted from office last month after her tax-cutting mini-budget sent the markets into a tailspin.

Rishi Sunak replaced her as PM, promising to "fix" the "mistakes" she had made. The Autumn Statement was the next step in that repair job.

In his interview with our political editor, the chancellor was asked to what extent the UK's economic woes could be blamed on Truss's mini-budget.

"Well, very little," Hunt said.

"There were mistakes. We corrected those within three weeks. But the problems we're facing are the same problems that Germany, France, America, Japan, all these countries are facing."

But as we’ve explained before, the mini-budget did have a profound impact.

The UK tax burden is forecast to reach its highest post-war level in the coming years.

Our political editor, Chris Mason, asked the chancellor: Can we ever trust a Conservative politician again?

"Only Conservatives understand that successful economies need to be lightly taxed, if they're going to be dynamic and innovative," Hunt says.

"You say that, and yet they keep going up?" Mason says.

"Yes, because we've had a very exceptional situation, we've had a once in a century pandemic, we've had the fuel price hikes caused by Vladimir Putin," Hunt says.

He says the Conservatives wanted "sound money and low taxes".

"But sound money has to come first."

Our political editor, Chris Mason, has interviewed Chancellor Jeremy Hunt following his autumn statement.

Gloomy economic forecasts loomed large, with the Office for Budget Responsibility predicting the biggest drop in living standards since records began.

Did the chancellor have any words of reassurance?

"These are real challenges for families up and down the country," Hunt says.

He says he had announced a plan "to get us through these difficult times" and bring down inflation, which soared to 11.1% last month, its highest level in 41 years.

Has he ducked difficult decisions, though? For example, Hunt said there would be no cuts to public spending until 2025, after the next general election.

Has much of the pain been postponed?

His answer: "Well, the Conservative chancellor standing up in the House of Commons, and saying there are going to be 25 billion pounds of tax increases, that is facing up to difficult decisions."

Does the government weigh up incomes against outgoings?published at 17:58 Greenwich Mean Time 17 November 2022

17:58 GMT 17 November 2022

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

Daniel asks: At what point does the government have to stop and look at a household's income against mortgages and essential outgoings? I know I am not the lowest-income household. But there are a lot of people around my age (31) who have young children and a high mortgage rate as we had to max out borrowing over the last five years or so to buy a house.

The swift rise in mortgage rates was among the most visible impacts of September’s mini-budget.

That certainly concentrated the minds of politicians, and we saw the upheaval it created in Westminster.

Rises in the Bank of England’s base rate will still feed through to more than a million homeowners on tracker and variable rate mortgages.

But the interest rate on fixed-rate deals is starting to fall from its peak. That said, the days of ultra-low mortgage rates which we have seen in the last decade or so are certainly over.

Why has the chancellor put the burden on small businesses?published at 17:54 Greenwich Mean Time 17 November 2022

17:54 GMT 17 November 2022

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

Robert in Halifax asks why the chancellor has put the burden on smaller businesses. A nearly £1 rise in the National Living Wage would mean an increase of £5,000 a year in wage bills for my small business, which is a coffee bar and takeaway.

Robert is absolutely correct to point out that the rise in the minimum wage is a cost that must be picked up by employers. Of course, the government is an employer too, of those who work in the public sector.

Businesses are having to cope with extra costs. No doubt Robert’s energy bill would have risen. The one crumb of comfort is that the rate at which prices are rising should start to slow.

The Federation of Small Businesses has welcomed some measures including announcements on business rates and employment allowance.

We use heating oil - what help is available?published at 17:46 Greenwich Mean Time 17 November 2022

17:46 GMT 17 November 2022

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

Robin writes: We have no gas in the area and use heating oil. How will the help on energy prices get to us?

This will be paid by putting a credit on your electricity bill.

The payment was originally planned to be £100, but will now be doubled to £200, and paid “as soon as possible this winter”.

Will the carer's allowance go up too?published at 17:41 Greenwich Mean Time 17 November 2022

17:41 GMT 17 November 2022

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

Peter writes in, saying: I receive a carer’s allowance for providing 24/7 care for my wife, which amounts currently to £369 every four weeks. Will this allowance be increasing under the Autumn Statement - and by how much?

Yes, it will increase by 10.1%.

In fact, carer’s allowance is one of those benefits which, by law, must increase at least in line with inflation every year irrespective of what happens to some other benefits.

So the rise in April is pegged to the inflation rate the previous September – hence the 10.1% rise.

Charities say that carer’s allowance is often not claimed by those entitled to it. So, if you are a carer, it is well worth investigating.

'I'm left substantially worse off'published at 17:24 Greenwich Mean Time 17 November 2022

17:24 GMT 17 November 2022

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

Stuart writes in to say that even as the National Living Wage increases to £10.42 per hour from April, that increase will be more than wiped out by the increase in energy costs we face.

This is a calculation everyone will have to make depending on their circumstances.

The increase in the minimum wage will certainly help the lowest-paid cover some of their costs. Remember too, that 40% of people on universal credit are in work.

They will get a 10.1% rise in that benefit, as well as a good chance of getting another cost-of-living payment next year of £900.

But, all things considered, everyone is going to feel an extra financial burden from energy bills after April – and many will start cutting back now to try to cope with it.

How will the Autumn Statement help me and other disabled people?published at 17:18 Greenwich Mean Time 17 November 2022

17:18 GMT 17 November 2022

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

Bob tells BBC News that he is disabled, but does not claim means-tested benefits. How will it help me and other disabled people?

I don’t know your specific situation, Bob, but there is some support for people with disabilities.

Disability benefits will rise by 10.1% in April. Those who qualify will get another £150 cost-of-living payment next year (or more if they do get means-tested benefits like universal credit).

But Bob, I’m sure, will echo the views of many charities which say that people with disabilities often have much higher energy bills - because you have to run specialist equipment and need to keep your homes warm – and should be given more support.

Experts urge anyone who has a disability to check they are receiving all the benefits to which they are entitled. Charities such as Citizens Advice can help with those claims.