Gem O'Reilly
BBC News

Image source, Anju Solanki

You may have read earlier my interview with Anju Solanki, a working mum who advises parents on getting back into the workplace after having children.

I've spoken to her again how we've heard the detail on the government's plans on childcare.

She described it as "a big announcement which comes with a big delay".

"The staggered approach is disappointing, as parents need that change and support today, particularly given the current cost of living crisis," she says.

Anju added that she would have liked to have seen more innovative changes focused around care for children under two, with funding to grandparents, for example.

However, she also said: "It is reassuring that the government is starting support from nine months given some parents are inadvertently under pressure to return earlier to work."

Anju adds that supporting parents with young families is, in her view, a clear growth strategy "which will pay off and we will see a return on investment from taxpayers".

Thanks for sending in your questionspublished at 17:43 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

17:43 GMT 15 March 2023

That brings our Your Questions Answered session to an end. Big thanks to our experts - Simon Read, Kevin Peachey and Myron Jobson - and to all of you who sent in questions.

Stay with us as we continue to bring you updates and analysis on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's 2023 Budget.

What will the new fitness for work assessment mean?published at 17:40 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

17:40 GMT 15 March 2023

Simon Read
Personal finance reporter

Ruth Strong, from Nottingham, wants clarification on something Jeremy Hunt said in his statement earlier. She asks what is meant by a new fitness assessment to claim sickness benefits?

The number of people who cannot work because of long-term sickness has been rising, with recent figures showing 2.5 million were missing from the labour market because of medical conditions.

The chancellor said he wanted to "remove the barriers that stopped people who want to from working".

He said half of the job vacancies in the UK could be filled by "people who say they would like to work despite being inactive due to sickness or disability".

Under the present system, benefit claimants can be asked to undergo a work capability assessment and have their benefits withdrawn if they are deemed fit for work.

Under new proposals announced in the Budget, benefit claimants will instead be asked to demonstrate what work they might be able to take.

The Work Capability Assessment will be removed to "ensure that those who are able to can progress in or towards work, without the worry of being reassessed and losing their benefit".

What's the Budget done for foster carers?published at 17:39 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

17:39 GMT 15 March 2023

Myron Jobson
Senior personal finance analyst, Interactive Investor

Deborah May has written in to say: I am a foster carer with a local authority. The price of everything is going up - food, clothes, energy. What did the Budget do for us?

The chancellor announced a slew of tax and spending pledges for the next five years, affecting the jobs market, childcare pensions, businesses and more. But whether the Budget was a good one depends on who you ask.

One measure that you should benefit from is the increase in income tax relief available to foster carers and shared lives carers. The threshold of income at which qualifying carers begin paying tax on care income will be increased to £18,140 per year plus £375 to £450 per person cared for per week from the next tax year (2023-24).

These thresholds will then be index-linked. The government says this represents a tax cut worth approximately £450 per year on average.

You could also benefit from the extension of free childcare of 30 hours a week for working parents to cover children from nine months. It will be a staged introduction, with 30 hours of free childcare from September 2025 and it will run under the framework that governs the existing 3–4-year-old 30 hours offer. As such, you would need to speak to your social worker and your local authority if you want to apply.

Other good news is the outlook for inflation has improved. It is expected to be 2.9% by the end of 2023 from 10.1% at present.

If you're just joining us, or need a quick refresher on what Chancellor Jeremy Hunt laid out in the Budget earlier, here are three of his key announcements:

• The £1m cap on the maximum amount people can save tax free in pensions over their lifetimes will be abolished
• Energy subsidies limiting typical household bills to £2,500 a year will be extended for three months, until the end of June
• 30 hours of free childcare for working parents in England will be expanded to cover one and two-year-olds, rolled out in stages from April 2024

But there's a lot more - you can click here for an at-a-glance summary - and we have experts on hand answering your questions on the Budget.

Meanwhile, today is also the largest day of industrial actionsince the current wave of unrest began last year, with teachers, junior doctors, civil servants and London's Tube workers staging walkouts - and the budget didn't address the ongoing disputes over pay for many public sector workers.

In other financial news, instability in the global banking sector has sent stock prices tumbling over the course of the day.

Shares in Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse have plunged to a record low, with worries the troubled bank will not be able to cope with the fallout from the collapse of US-based Silicon Valley Bank.

Stay with us.

Gem O'Reilly
Live reporter

Image source, Chris Grimes

Chris Grimes is content creator on TikTok, external, aiming to help people save money. He started after losing his job in the pandemic and having to manage his own money more tightly. He says he wants the channel to educate and inform people on how to navigate their household finances.

He’s had lots of people contact him about their concerns following the Budget. He outlines three main areas.

1. Energy: Chris explains that despite energy bills remaining at £2,500, people are still scared about their energy prices, because their £67 month winter discount stopping. He said: "Many families are still going to struggle. Yes, they've stopped the price hike but people struggling with feel the impact of the loss of that support."
2. Childcare: "Everyone is pleased" with the childcare announcements, Chris says, but he adds that some people are saying it's long overdue.
3. Disability: "People want to know how the changes to disability [benefits] are going to impact them personally," Chris says. He adds that everyone is different and so they want to know how it affects them from an individual perspective.

Image source, Parliament TV

Former Conservative Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has criticised the chancellor’s decision to go ahead with an increase in corporation tax.

He said the UK should follow the Republic of Ireland where he said corporation tax was half the proposed UK rate but raised more than VAT.

He told MPs in the Commons this afternoon: “We have a rise now in corporation tax but we then sort of salami slice it a bit with some capital allowances to pretend it’s not much of a rise.

"This is not a good approach to tax policy. The best approach to tax policy is low tax rates with few exclusions.”

He added the government was setting up a tax avoidance scheme for companies.

What do the planned disability benefit changes mean for me?published at 17:10 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

17:10 GMT 15 March 2023

Simon Read
Personal finance reporter

This next question comes from Sarah Lane, who's based in Oxford. She says: I was concerned and confused by the Budget today when Jeremy Hunt said that work capability assessments would be scrapped.

I receive LCWRA (Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity) as part of my universal credit and work part-time. Do the changes mean that I will lose my LCRWA?

I can understand your worries but hopefully you will still be able to claim the same amount under the proposed new system.

The government has published a white paper which proposes removing the Work Capability Assessment to “ensure that those who are able to can progress in or towards work, without the worry of being reassessed and losing their benefit".

It will be replaced with a process that asks claimants to demonstrate what work they might be able to take. Under the new system, there will only be one health and disability assessment for people claiming Personal Independent Payment (PIP).

A new universal credit "health element" will be awarded to claimants of PIP, "ensuring there is a safety net in place for the most vulnerable", the white paper says.

"We will set the award rate of the new UC health element at the same level as is currently awarded to those people determined to have Limited Capability for Work and Work Related Activity (LCWRA)," it says.

There’s no timetable as yet for the changes with the government saying it will attempt to pass legislation to bring these changes into effect "when parliamentary time allows".

Read more: Disability work tests to be scrapped in shake-up

Why are new childcare rules not coming for so long?published at 17:06 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

17:06 GMT 15 March 2023

Myron Jobson
Senior personal finance analyst, Interactive Investor

My next question is from Emily, who wants answers about the new childcare scheme. She says: I currently have a 9-month old baby, so was excited to hear that there will be extended 30 free hours of childcare for under twos.

But now they're saying it won't be implemented until September 2025, when he'll be three anyway, so it won't help us at all! Why is it taking so long to implement?

Good question. The short answer is: it is unclear. The chancellor didn’t give an explanation for the delay in his speech, but it is fair to assume that it has something to do with the cost of extending the scope of the scheme.

There are also questions over whether the policy will actually mean parents doing more hours, and whether there are the nursery places available for their children.

As a result, the extension of the 30-hour free childcare will be a staged, with 15 free hours of childcare for two-year-olds in April 2024, and in September 2024 for those aged over nine months, then 30 hours for all from September 2025.

But the financial reprieve can’t come soon enough for many parents as the ongoing cost of living crisis continues to squeeze finances.

In all, the policy could finally stack the numbers in favour of many parents who have given up on full time work because of eye-watering childcare costs - a fate that is statistically experienced by mothers most. It could also prove to be an important step forward towards addressing the gender pay and pension gap.

A bit of reaction to today's Budget now from the CBI, one of UK's largest business groups.

Its interim director-general says it is is "a strong second act in the Chancellor’s plan for stability and growth".

Matthew Fell says the CBI, which speaks on behalf of 190,000 businesses, had called for action on people and productivity and the government has "delivered support for both".

The new measures will secure the growth needed to "boost living standards for all", Fell said.

He said full capital expensing - where firms will be able to deduct investment in new machinery and technology to lower their taxable profits - will keep the UK at the top table for attracting investment.

Fell added that boosting childcare provision is "a big win" for businesses struggling to recruit and retain, and for parents balancing care and career needs.

How does all this affect me and my pension?published at 16:54 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

16:54 GMT 15 March 2023

Simon Read
Personal finance reporter

Peter Brown has written in about his pension situation. He says he took one 25% tax free when the limit was £1.25m. He has another one still active too. How will the new rules affect me, he asks?

You can usually take up to 25% of the amount built up in any pension as a tax-free lump sum. That’s been the case for some years and means you can take 25% of other pension pots tax free when you wish.

The fact that you’ve drawn tax-free cash from one of your pots has no effect on your ability to draw tax-free cash from the others.

However the lifetime pension allowance limited the amount you could put into a pension or pensions to £1.07m. That restricted the amount you could save, not the amount of tax-free cash you could withdraw, which was up to a quarter of the total. In short it was limited to £268,275.

The lifetime limit was introduced in April 2006 at £1.5m but was cut later to £1m and reached its current level of ​​£1,073,100 in 2020-21, where it has stayed for three years.

The lifetime allowance will be abolished from April 2024, but hidden in the Budget documents was the fact that the amount of tax-free cash has been limited to £268,275. If you’ve already taken that much out of a pension pot as a lump sum, then it looks like you will be limited to that, unless you had existing rights to higher tax-free amounts.

Clarification: this post was edited to include the tax-free cash limit. It originally was omitted from the answer.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced a major extension of free childcare for families in England as part of the Budget.

It means that free childcare for working parents in England has been expanded to cover all children under five years old.

Equivalent funding will be given to the authorities in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The free childcare scheme the chancellor is extending in England does not exist in Northern Ireland. Therefore there is no guarantee that similar changes will come into force there.

Childcare is a devolved issue, meaning the Welsh government will decide if people in Wales will also get more. Welsh ministers said they would be "carefully analysing the impact of the UK Spring Budget on our finances," and that consequential funding would be allocated "in line with our priorities for Wales in the normal way".

In Scotland two-year-olds whose parents receive qualifying benefits and are eligible are entitled to up to 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare a year, and the government hasn't said whether the Budget will change this.

Read more here.

More from personal finance expert Martin Lewis from his appearance on Radio 5 Live now.We says he is "disappointed" changes he was hoping to see to the allowance for the Lifetime ISA, external - an account for people over 18 and under 40 - weren't implemented. Martin explains the Lifetime ISA allowance currently allows you to buy a property up to the value of £450,000, a figure which hasn't changed since 2017."Many people are now being priced out [of the housing market] and if they want to get their money out without buying a property they pay a penalty," he says."I had asked they either put the threshold up, or they reduce the penalty for people in that situation - that hasn't happened."

Can tax-free allowance be backdated?published at 16:42 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

16:42 GMT 15 March 2023

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

Phil wants to know whether the pensions annual tax-free allowance - which is rising from £40k to £60k - can be backdated for previous tax years at the £60k level. Alternatively, he asks, does it apply to this tax year or next tax year?

It will be possible to put in £60,000 in the tax year starting from April. In theory, you would also be able to put in £40,000 - not £60,000 - for each of the previous three years, if the allowance was unused.

However, in practice, this is unlikely for very high earners because of other pension rules.

If this all feels a world away from your finances, remember some people - such as business owners - may not have saved much or anything into pension for years, but might want to put a lot in as they get closer to retirement.

As always, advisers can help with some of the detail.

What about us small business owners?published at 16:41 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

16:41 GMT 15 March 2023

Myron Jobson
Senior personal finance analyst, Interactive Investor

This next question, from Anna in Surrey, is a detailed one. She says she's the owner of a small business earning just above the limited company threshold. She's also the sole employee. The services she offers are professional and alternative therapies.

There is talk that incentives will be offered to offset the huge 6% rise in corporation tax coming in next month. However none of these apply to small businesses like mine, she says.

So, what incentives are there for entrepreneurs like her, who are trying to set out their stalls and make a decent living? She adds that she's about to lose over £5,000 pa.

The chancellor did indeed confirm a hike in corporation tax from 19% to 25% from April for companies with over £250,000 in profits as planned as part of broader efforts to balance the books.

However, the heightened tax burden can be offset by a new scheme allowing every pound invested by businesses in IT equipment, plants or machinery to be deducted in full from taxable profits for the next three years.

This means that until April 2026, for every £1 invested in qualifying expenditure, companies can save up to 25p on their tax bill. The equipment you use for your professional services and alternative therapies venture could be classified as qualifying expense. You’d have to go to the gov.uk website to find out.

There are also a host of small business grants and other options you could be eligible for – some of which are specific to certain regions of the country. Again, gov.uk has a list of the options available.

Wishing you all the best with your business, Anna!

We're answering your questionspublished at 16:40 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

16:40 GMT 15 March 2023

If you're just joining us, we have experts Simon Read, Kevin Peachey and Myron Jobson on hand to answer your questions on today's budget.

You can see the main takeaways from the budget here.

Stay with us.

Michael Buchanan
Social Affairs Correspondent

The Chancellor announced a huge overhaul of disability benefits and a more "rigorous" regime of benefit sanctions.

The Work Capability Assessment is to be scrapped. The test, despised by many charities, is currently used to decide if someone's ill health makes them eligible for additional benefit payments.

The government aims to reform the system so that people can start working without the fear of losing the extra money.

From 2026, the government will use another test, currently used to assess eligibility for Personal Independence Payment, the main disability benefit, to decide if someone is eligible for a health-related top-up.

At the moment, 46% of people who get money after going through a WCA get a positive PIP outcome too.

But that leaves two million people who don't quality for PIP but do get the additional health benefit.

When the changes come in, new claimants who don't qualify for PIP would not get any additional benefit top-up and would be expected to look for work.

Both the Work Capability Assessment and the PIP test are viewed with disdain by many people who've been through them.

Claimants have complained of feeling stressed ahead of the tests, of being made to feel like liars, and of examiners failing to understand their conditions, with mental health charities in particular concerned that the tests don't grasp the impact of psychiatric problems.

Some groups are already expressing alarm at the prospect of the PIP test, in its current form, being the gateway to additional support.

But despite the plans, today's Office for Budget Responsibility tables show the government is expected to spend almost £80bn on health and disability benefits in 2026/27, 11.7% more than was forecasted just a year ago as more people successfully claim these benefits.

How does the Budget actually benefit me?published at 16:30 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

16:30 GMT 15 March 2023

Simon Read
Personal finance reporter

Next up, Anthony Lee from Derbyshire asks how the Budget benefits people in their 50s on average earnings with no Universal Credit?

The Budget focus on encouraging older people to return to work meant an announcement that there will be more places on "skills boot camps" to encourage people in their 50s who have left their jobs to return to the workplace.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt called them “returnships”, which will focus on the flexibility and previous experience that people in their 50s have, to reduce training length.

For those still working there was a scrapping of the lifetime pension allowance, which had limited the amount of money a worker could stash in their pension pot before having to pay extra tax to just over £1m.

The chancellor said scrapping the limit will encourage some doctors and consultants to return to work. He also raised the pensions annual tax-free allowance by 50% from £40,000 to £60,000, to help encourage older workers.

On more general changes, fuel duty has been frozen for another year and government help with energy bills is being extended for another three months.

I'm confused about the new childcare scheme...published at 16:27 Greenwich Mean Time 15 March 2023

16:27 GMT 15 March 2023

Kevin Peachey
Cost of living correspondent

My first question comes from a reader who hasn't left their name. They ask: Why is the new childcare scheme only for term times? Is it only for teachers and MPs?

That is one of a series of questions raised over this particular policy – and has been part of the debate among parents of three and four-year-olds under the current childcare offer.

Like so many things, it is one of the government’s choices.

Other issues that parents have raised include why the policy will not be fully introduced until September 2025 – the government says it is to ensure the sector is ready.

There is also a wider, and not solely financial, conversation about what is best for young children and their parents in terms of work and family balance.

Read more: What is the plan for 30 hours of free childcare and how will it work?

Personal finance expert Martin Lewis has been reacting to the Budget on Radio 5 Live.

He has been campaigning for the Energy Price Guarantee to remain at current levels and says he's "very pleased" to hear this is happening.

Energy bills for a typical household in Britain will remain at £2,500 until the end of June, however, Lewis points out the £400 discount on bills which most households received this winter will not continue beyond March.

"In practical terms people will lose that £66 monthly discount on their bills and that will seem disproportionately high for lower users," he says.

Image source, PA

Martin has also campaigned for people on pre-payment meters to be charged the same as those on direct debit.

He feels it's "very good news" his suggested changes will now be implemented, although it's not a "panacea" for pre-payment users as he expects fixed tariffs coming back into the energy market soon.

"Fixes tend to only be offered to those on direct debit in the main," he adds, "therefore pre-payment users still won't have the same choice or flexibility as those on direct debit do but it means if you're on the price cap, at least you won't be paying more."

Another aspect he's spotted in the small print is that those on home heat networks, who "haven't had the same subsidies" as those on normal domestic bills, are also going to be given help to give them the equivalent support that those on normal domestic bills are getting.