Budget will be aimed at turbocharging prosperitypublished at 11:40 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

11:40 GMT 15 March 2023

Dharshini David
Economics Correspondent

All Chancellors say their budgets are about growth, making us better off - but this one comes at a crucial time. The UK is the only major rich economy - unlike France, Italy and the US for example - that remains smaller than prior to the pandemic.

And Jeremy Hunt is likely to have to concede that our long-term prospects are likely to be less lucrative than hoped.

Put bluntly, strip out inflation and households will be thousands of pounds worse off than they would have been had our economy continued on its pre-pandemic path - giving us, and the Chancellor, less to play with than we could have had. Some of that is down to global factors - the pandemic, the energy price shock, some down to past policy.

So the plans today from boosting childcare to investment are about turbocharging our productive powers, our prosperity. How much impact they have, we won’t know for some time, in the meantime, the tough times aren’t over.

Emma Owen
Live reporter

It's late morning already and shortly we'll be taking you to the Commons for Prime Minister's Questions.

Immediately afterwards we'll see Jeremy Hunt unveil his Budget and the raft of measures he hopes will help grow the economy and encourage people to return to the workforce.

I'm here with writers from our politics and business teams, and we have expert correspondents at the ready to give their take too.

The action in Westminster should take us up to about 1.30PM, and then we'll continue to chew over the detail with analysis and explanation of what it means for you.

At around 4pm, there's a chance to put your questions to our personal finance gurus too. We'll post details of how to get in touch shortly.

David Porter
Scotland Westminster editor

This has been dubbed as a 'back to work Budget', and is expected to include a range of incentives to persuade people of working again to re-enter the workforce.

Central will be a commitment to expand free child care in England.

Because education is devolved, there will be equivalent extra funding for Scotland.

As part of the plan to boost economic growth there will be incentives for companies to invest, although other business taxes are set to rise.

In Scotland the whisky industry is worried alcohol taxes will rise, but there my be better news on fuel duties, green measures and the creation of so called 'enterprise zones', two of which could some to Scotland

Dani Spencer, 37, lives near Salisbury with her husband and two sons - she's been speaking to BBC Newsnight about her childcare situation, and it's a nice illustration of what many mothers of young children are dealing with.

She spent eight years working as a graphic designer, but hasn’t returned to work since having her second child because of the cost of childcare.

Dani says it’s cheaper for her to say at home than pay the costs of nursery and afterschool club. She says she finds the situation demoralising.

She’d like free childcare to be extended to 1-2 year-olds - as has been widely trailed.

“When I had my first son, he developed really well mentally and socially and emotionally in a nursery placement,” Dani says.

“It's sad that I can't give that to my second son,” she says.

Lucy Gilder
Home and Social Affairs Researcher

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has vowed to help reduce the cost of childcare, but on top of expanding free provision what else is the government looking to do?

Families on universal credit are set to receive childcare funding upfront, instead of having to claim it back.

The government is also expected to increase the maximum amount people on universal credit can claim for childcare. Support has been frozen at £646-a-month per child for several years.

"Tens of thousands" of families could benefit from this change, the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank said.

However, Hunt has signalled that more childcare support for other families is unlikely as it would be "expensive".

Read more here.

Reality Check

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt wants this to be seen as a Budget for growth, so expect competing claims about how much the UK economy has actually been growing in the Commons.

The government is likely to point to the UK’s GDP growth for 2022, external, which at 4.0%, was faster than the other countries in the G7 group of big economies.

Labour is likely to cite the forecast, external from the International Monetary Fund that the UK economy is going to shrink by 0.6% in 2023, much worse than other comparable economies.

But that forecast, made in January, is already a bit out of date, because UK economic data so far in 2023 has been better than expected.

Also expect Labour to talk about how the UK economy is still not back to where it was before the pandemic, unlike the rest of the G7 countries, as you can see in this chart.

John Campbell
BBC News NI Economics and Business Editor

Public finances in Northern Ireland are in a difficult place.

Stormont departments are facing cuts of at least £500m in the new financial year.

The only thing that will realistically cushion the impact of that is additional money from the Treasury.

If Jeremy Hunt increases spending on services in England, that will automatically boost funding in Northern Ireland.

That is due to the operation of the Barnett formula, which is used to decide how much money the UK's devolved administrations receive.

Extra funding is referred to as "Barnett consequentials" and it is those that matter to the officials in charge of Stormont's budget.

But this Budget is not expected to lavish new money on public services so the amount of extra cash will probably be modest.

Read more on what Northern Ireland can expect from the Budget here.

Image source, Reuters

Jeremy Hunt has just been photographed leaving 11 Downing Street, his official residence, brandishing the iconic red box.

Fresh out of a lengthy Cabinet meeting, Hunt will now make his way to the House of Commons where he'll deliver the Spring Budget at about 12:30 GMT.

Nick Eardley
Chief political correspondent

Keep an eye on taxes on alcohol later.

Some in the industry are expecting a big increase – in line with inflation.

They are expecting around 10%, although I should emphasise this hasn’t been confirmed and the Treasury won’t comment.

You can expect there to be some anger if that does happen, on top of the wider change of alcohol duty due later this year.

Gem O'Reilly
BBC News

As part of the government’s plans to encourage people back into work, parents claiming universal credit are to get more help with childcare costs and 30 hours of weekly free childcare being expanded to cover one and two-year-olds.

I spoke to Anju Solanki who runs a business that helps parents back into the workforce after having a baby and aims to close the gender gap. She is also a working mum.

I asked her about this potential change for parents and what impact she thinks it could have. She said: “It is very welcome and will make a difference to incentivising parents back to work. By doing that they will allow for continuity of careers for mothers and fathers."

Anju said her own childcare costs have gone up and that you still have to take into account how expensive it is. Childcare costs in the UK are among the highest in the world.

However Anju thinks this is a positive step forward and says: "I feel there is hope back in the system for us parents".

Image source, Anju Solanki

Faisal Islam
Economics editor

The point about this policy is that it is not just meant to be an offer to a key part of the working population.

It is calculated to be sufficiently effective to shift the dial on the number of workers across the economy.

This will help forecasts for the economy, reduce predicted borrowing, and therefore provide extra room for manoeuvre on government spending.

It also pitches the Conservatives with a clear offer to a key part of the electorate.

Lessons are being learnt I’m told from Australia’s general election, where the Labour Party’s win last year was attributed to this significant policy shift.

The opposition here didn’t quite announce this policy last week, presumably for spending control reasons.

So the government will feel they have planted a flag firmly on a policy that will help families during the cost of living crisis, but clearly boost the flat economy too.

Adam Durbin
Live reporter

The state of childcare access in the UK seems to be a major issue in this Budget, with parents of one and two year olds looking set to be given 30 hours of free childcare a week from the government.

Ahead of the chancellor's announcement, I spoke to the head of family support charity Coram, external, Megan Jarvis, to get her views on why this is such a key issue to solve?

She tells me the two major problems facing families are can they afford a place and, even if they can, is there a place available for their kids?

Jarvis says these issues are particularly acute and challenging for poorer families, pointing to Coram's research which found the average cost of a part time childcare place for a two-year-old is over £150 a week - more than £7,000 a year.

"That's just completely out of reach for many families," she tells me.

Coram's research also shows only half of local authorities have sufficient places for working families, with growing evidence the situation is worse in lower income areas.

Jarvis says a lack of places is particularly difficult for families with disabled children, as just 18% of local authorities having sufficient places for them.

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

We already have an expectation of changes to pension allowances – allowing people to accumulate more money in their pot before facing an additional tax charge.

That is a policy directed primarily at keeping doctors and consultants working in a stretched NHS, instead of retiring early, reducing hours, or turning down overtime for tax reasons.

But keep an eye and ear out for any wider changes that will affect more people than just the most wealthy pension savers.

Will there be a decision on when the state pension age will rise? Will there be a change to the age at which people can realistically draw private pensions?

We don’t know yet, but it could mean millions of people having to work for longer.

Image source, PA

Charlie Mullins, founder of Pimlico Plumbers, says it's wonderful the government is encouraging more people to get back into work.Speaking to Radio 5 Live, he says it's "good to hear a lot of working class people are going to get something out of the budget, including the pension end of it... it's a big step forward.""I would say the economy will gain massively by getting people back into work and contributing again."Working is a lovely thing and gives you lovely things in life out of it... people have become lazy and we need to change that culture and maybe this current government will do that."

Faisal Islam
Economics editor

In about an hour's time, Jeremy Hunt will become just the second of the last five chancellors to actually hold the famous red box outside Number 11 this morning.

Those five chancellors were in post for less than four years in total, with an average tenure of nine months. But for most of that period the Treasury was run by Rishi Sunak.

The previous five chancellors to them were in place over a 26-year period.

This piece of Westminster trivia points to an important defining piece of context for this Budget statement - the attempt to return to stability after rolling crises.

And the key admission in the Budget documents will be about two structural weaknesses in the UK economy - the size of the workforce, and low business investment.

That lack of normality and stability has had an impact.

Some will blame the corporation tax rises, but they are only just getting going, so can’t be to blame for the recent poor record on investment.

The recent volatility on financial markets after the collapse of some US banks are also pointed to as vindication by some in the Treasury for a tough line on tax and spend, since the mini-Budget.

Long gone are the days of summer, when forecasters were derided by Liz Truss as "declinist bean counters".

The Office for Budget Responsibility are very much at the centre of things right now, and will deliver an instant verdict on whether the policy changes announced will shift the dial on the economy, or the number of workers.

One of the key things Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will be setting out in today's Budget is his plan for economic growth. But some Tory MPs believe the planned increase corporation tax will stifle this target.

Discussing the issue on Radio 4's Today programme earlier, Kitty Ussher, chief economist at the Institute of Directors and a former Labour Treasury minister, said it was possible to grow the economy at the same time taxes on businesses are raised.

She said if the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) raised its growth forecast later today as a result of the Treasury's measures, that would be a good indicator.

She added that last year's growth forecast had been "a bit pessimistic", and so she would expect an "automatic upgrade" this time round.

Pushed on the accuracy of OBR forecasts, chair of the Natwest group Sir Howard Davies acknowledged that economic forecasts weren't perfect, but said it was reasonable for the OBR to point to a change that might come if a specific measure is put in place.

"Then comes the question of what the actual outcome is," he added.

Image source, UK Parliament

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled tax rises and spending cuts worth billions of pounds as part of his Autumn Statement in November.

Here’s a summary of the main measures:

• Tax: Main National Insurance, inheritance, income tax personal allowance and higher rate thresholds frozen for further two years, until April 2028. The threshold for the additional 45% rate of income tax cut from £150,000 to £125,140
• Energy: Energy price cap extended for one year beyond April. Windfall tax on profits of oil and gas firms increased from 25% to 35% and extended until March 2028
• Minimum wage: Minimum wage for people aged over 23 increased from £9.50 to £10.42 an hour from next April
• Benefits and pensions: State pension payments and means-tested and disability benefits increased by 10.1%, in line with inflation
• Capital gains tax: Tax-free allowances for dividend and capital gains tax cut

Read our full guide to the key points from the Autumn Statement here.

Some big economic decisions already madepublished at 09:20 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

09:20 GMT 15 March 2023

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

It is always worthwhile keeping across what is said in the Budget and what lurks in the red book of policies and costings.

But remember that some of the biggest decisions affecting your finances in April and beyond have already been made.

It was in November that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said benefits and the state pension would rise in April by 10.1% and there will also be further cost-of-living payments.

But, really importantly, income tax thresholds will be frozen for most people for another five years.

That means any kind of pay rise could drag you into a higher tax bracket. Even if it does not, it will almost certainly mean a greater proportion of your income is taxed.

Image source, PA Media

A short while ago, Rishi Sunak's top government ministers headed into No 10 for what's presumably a pretty jampacked Cabinet meeting.

When that's wrapped up, we'll see Chancellor Jeremy Hunt leave 11 Downing Street - his official residence next door to Sunak in No 10 - with the signature Red Box in tow.

The PM will then head to his weekly Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) session at the House of Commons, which runs between 12:00 and 12:30 GMT, before Hunt delivers the Spring Budget.

It's a busy day but be rest assured we'll bring you all the latest with timely updates and analysis. Stay tuned.

Nick Eardley
Chief political correspondent

There has been a debate raging in government about how best to achieve economic growth.

Some Conservatives – many of whom supported Liz Truss – want tax cuts to boost spending.

In particular, they are concerned about corporation tax going up to 25%.

But I think they are going to be disappointed today.

We’re not expecting significant tax cuts. Corporation tax will definitely go up – although there will be some mitigations through investment tax breaks.

The chancellor’s argument is that it’s also crucial to bring inflation down – and that means no new borrowing to fund tax cuts.

Labour say the Conservatives are guilty of using sticking plasters instead of finding proper solutions.