Kathryn Sampson from STV News asks why the chancellor did not make the £20 universal credit increase permanent and whether Scotland should be able to have an independence referendum.

"I don't think anyone wants us to be focused on constitutional questions at the moment," Sunak replies.

On universal credit, he says it only forms one part of the support available and that the government is providing other types of help.

However, he adds the best way to help people is to make sure they have decent jobs and cites the Kickstart scheme aimed at improving recruitment.

Next up is Channel 4's Helia Ebrahami who wants to know why there is no provision for Covid-19 related costs beyond the next year.

Does the chancellor really think the virus will cost nothing she asks?

Mr Sunak says he doesn't know exactly what the future path of the pandemic will be but he has allocated £1.6 billion for the vaccine programme this year.

He adds he doesn't have "a crystal ball" but the measures in his Budget will help prepare for any future crisis.

Ed Conway from Sky News has a chart behind him which he says show the tax burden is getting high by the end of current forecasts. He asks if it concerns him that this tax burden would be as high as it was in the 1960s.

Rishi Sunak says that the chart doesn't show a period of time when there was a pandemic. He says, on taxation, the government is spending money on "strong public services" and in "projects across the country".

ITV's Joel Hills asks if the corporation tax rise is a gamble that will endanger growth.

Rishi Sunak replies that the UK will still have a lower rate than many of its competitors.

He insists the government is "on the side of businesses" but adds that it is "reasonable to ask the largest, most successful companies to contribute something back".

The BBC's Economics Editor, Faisal Islam, has the first media question.

He asks if the government has changed its approach to borrowing, spending and big business given the chancellor's decision to freeze tax thresholds.

Sunak says the pandemic has caused "pretty bad damage" to the economy but the measures he outlined today will put the public finances back in a strong position over time.

He says freezing income tax thresholds is fair and means that nobody's current take home pay will be hit.

He says the benefits will build over time and those on the lowest incomes will be protected.

The chancellor is now taking questions, and starts with one from a member of the public.

Ravindra from Dudley asks what the government is doing to help those in properties with unsafe cladding.

Rishi Sunak says he knows this has been "enormously frustrating and worrying for people" but the government is taking steps to help people with unsafe cladding.

He says since he became chancellor he has allocated £5bn to help people in these situations, and the government is providing low-cost loans to those who want to make additional changes to their buildings.

The chancellor also says he wants his Budget to prepare the UK for the future saying his measures will "redraw the economic map with decent jobs in every corner of our country".

He concludes by paying tribute to all those who have lost their lives to coronavirus.

He says the loss has been "overwhelming" and promises to meet the moment with "the passion and energy it demands".

"Our recovery begins today," he says.

The chancellor says the government will keep economic support in place "until well past the point we exit lockdown".

He also says he wants to get borrowing "back under control" arguing that the country must be able to face the next crisis.

This, he says, is why he is freezing tax threshold and asking business to contribute more as well in the future.

"I know the British people don't like tax rises but I also know they dislike dishonesty even more," he says.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is beginning the Downing Street press conference.

It comes after he presented his Budget to MPs in the House of Commons this afternoon.

Stay with us for all the updates on what he says.

Image source, PA Media

Rishi Sunak will be back in front of the cameras shortly as he leads a press conference at Downing Street.

While we wait for it to start here is a re-cap of the key points from the Budget:

• Furlough and support for the self-employed to be extended until the end of September - employers to be asked to contribute 10% in July and 20% in August and September
• £20 a-week uplift in universal credit worth £1,000 a year to be extended for another six months

• UK to borrow a peacetime record of £355bn this year

• National Insurance and VAT rates will not go up, but more people will be pushed into the top income tax bracket.
• Corporation tax on company profits to rise from 19% to 25% in April 2023, but kept at 19% for about 1.5 million smaller companies with profits of less than £50,000

• VAT rate for hospitality firms to be maintained at reduced 5% rate until September
• Business rates holiday for firms in England to continue until June with 75% discount after that

• Labour said the Budget "simply papers over the cracks"
• The SNP said it was laying the ground for "more Tory austerity, a decade more of Conservative cuts".

Alex Forsyth
Political correspondent

The Nicol family’s gymnastics business has been closed for the best part of a year.

They’ve relied on universal credit for the first time, which mum Nicky described as a “lifeline”.

“Without that I don’t know where we would have been.” she said.

The family welcomed the extension to furlough, and said support to get businesses going again was key in the budget, as well as investment across the country including in places like Grimsby.

Uncertainty

Twenty-year-old Elle Byatt from Grimsby is on furlough from her job in a hair salon. She’s been boosting her skills with extra training.

She welcomed the idea of schemes to help people get on the property ladder, but said the pandemic has left her feeling uncertain about the future.

She said: “It made me question whether I’m in the right businesses, am I going to be where I want to be in five years? Will I be able to buy a house and start my life?”

Simon Jack
BBC Business Editor

Image source, Getty Images

For business, this was a budget of two halves. A short-term plaster applied to the financial wounds of the pandemic, to be followed by it being painfully ripped off with some of the biggest business tax rises in decades.

For many, the extension of furlough to September, the business rates holiday extension to June and a two thirds cut for those forced to close along with a continued lower rate of VAT was welcome.

However, the biggest business grenade was the sudden rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25% in 2023.

There was a quid pro quo. Companies that invest will be able to deduct £1.30 for every £1 they invest in the future and this new rate will only apply to profits over 250,000. While those clearing £50,000 or under will be taxed at the current 19% with a tapering rate in between.

But it reverses, at a stroke, 10 years of Conservative Party thinking that lower business taxes stimulate business growth, create more jobs and ultimately lead to higher tax receipts.

That article of faith has been binned along with any idea that the UK would sell itself as Singapore-style low tax jurisdiction in a post-Brexit world.

Image source, EPA

In a break with normal Budget tradition, the chancellor will get to his feet again soon - this time to answer questions from journalists and members of the public on his Budget statement.

We're expecting Rishi Sunak to be probed more on the balance he tried to strike between continuing emergency financial lifelines to families and businesses yet calming Tory nerves with a plan to start paying down the debt in the not too distant future.

Expect him to be pushed too on the temporary extension to universal credit, with campaigners saying those on the lowest incomes need a permanent top up, not a stay of execution.

We'll be here to take you through it live.

Image source, Getty Images

Union leaders have called Chancellor Rishi Sunak's Budget "an insult" to public sector workers.

"This Budget is an insult to the millions of NHS, schools, care, local government workers who have seen us through this crisis," said Rehana Azam, national officer of the GMB.

"All this Budget shows... is that his clapping is a worthless gesture," he added, referring to the weekly Clap for Carers which took place during the first lockdown.

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "After a year of key workers going above and beyond, it's an insult that the Chancellor announced no new support for our hard-pressed NHS or public services and no guarantee of a decent pay rise for all our public sector key workers."

Dame Donna Kinnair, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, expressed concern that the chancellor had not set aside money in his Budget for a "significant pay rise" for nursing staff this summer.

"If that pay rise is low, it won't be enough to stave off a potential exodus of exhausted NHS nursing staff at the end of the pandemic - and NHS services will find safe patient care even harder to deliver," she said.

Image source, Getty Images

Ben King
Business reporter, BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

Spending on government departments will fall in 2022-23, forcing government to make some ‘challenging’ decisions about funding public services, according to the government's fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

Day-to-day departmental spending is set to be £13bn lower in 2022-23, and £16bn lower in 2024-25, relative to the plans announced last March.

The majority of that was announced in November, but today’s Budget saw further cuts, including another £3.3bn reduction in 22-23.

Given commitments to increase spending on schools, health, defence and overseas aid, that would mean a 1% cut (after inflation) to other government departments.

If spending on overseas aid were returned to the 0.7% level promised in the Conservative manifesto, non-protected departments would see a 2.8% cut.

Jonathan Blake
BBC political correspondent

Image source, UK Parliament

Like all big events in Parliament, the Budget statement looked and felt very different with social distancing measures in place.

So much of the chancellor's moment in the spotlight is usually about the theatre - rhetorical flourishes, crowd pleasing announcements and the odd last minute surprise.

But the sparsely populated chamber is a reminder of the pandemic and all the economic pain it has caused.

Those few Conservative MPs present behind the chancellor may wave their papers in support, while Labour members stare stony-faced from the opposite side.

But while there's still a sense of occasion, this biggest of days in Parliament was muted, like so much else, by the pandemic.

Reality Check

The chancellor has announced a government guarantee for first-time buyers, who will be able to take out a mortgage worth 95% of a property's value. The loans will be available for properties worth up to £600,000.

But Labour's Keir Starmer said the idea resembled the Conservative government's policy from 2013, which he said "fuelled a housing bubble, pushed up prices and made owning a home more difficult".

Under that policy, known as Help to Buy, potential homeowners who raised a 5% deposit could take out an additional loan for 20% of a property’s value, or 40% if they wanted to buy a house in London. By 2019, the government had funded around £12.5bn in equity loans, helping around 220,000 households to buy a home.

But some have argued that Help to Buy inflated the property market by increasing demand. According to Shelter, a housing charity, in its first two years, Help to Buy added around £8,250 to the average house price. And according to Shelter, the average person using Help to Buy was earning £50,000 a year, 85% more than the typical private renter.

Image source, HoC

DUP MP Sammy Wilson says he's "disappointed" that Chancellor Rishi Sunak has not used his Budget to seize an "opportunity" to raise taxes without hurting businesses and individuals in the UK.

The MP for East Antrim says Brexit has given the UK a chance to tackle firms which have been "avoiding taxes wholesale"

The chancellor "needs to take" these opportunities by announcing new policies to crack down on the "Amazons and the Googles who use the Irish Republic as a place where they can take all their profits to.... and then avoid our taxes", Wilson says.

He welcomes other parts of Sunak's Budget, saying many of his rural constituents would be glad of the continued freeze in fuel duty, as well as continued business rates relief.

However, he says there will be many "challenges" and "painful choices" as the UK works to pay off its debt in the future.

The SDLP's Colum Eastwood tells the House of Commons that increasing the rate of corporation tax in the UK will make it roughly double that in the Republic Ireland.

He also says NHS workers should get more money, and that more investment is needed in the health service to deal with Covid-19.

Image source, HoC

Back in the Commons, former Conservative Brexit Secretary David Davis praises the chancellor's response to the pandemic.

But he says the deficit, which amounts to £14,000 per household, cannot be paid off through raising taxes, as this would be "crippling".

Mr Davis says the only way to reduce the deficit and sovereign debt is to increase the tax base, through growth and increased employment.

For this reason, he says, and not because of Conservative ideology, he opposes the chancellor's proposal to increase corporation tax.

We need a "growth strategy," he says.