Some of the announcements due to come in the chancellor's Budget statement have already been released:

• Business support will continue throughout the lockdown in England. The Job Retention Scheme - or furlough - will be extended until the end of September, and cuts to VAT for hospitality businesses are also expected to continue
• High Streets shops and hospitality firms will be able to get a grant from a £5bn fund to help them reopen after lockdown. Grants will be worth up to £18,000 per firm, but some business groups say it isn't enough.
• Arts and culture - An extra £300m will be added to the government's £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund. Museums and cultural bodies in England will also receive £90m to keep going until they can open their doors. There will also be £18.8m for community cultural projects, and £77m allocated for similar initiatives in the devolved nations.
• Sports including cricket, tennis and horse racing will benefit from a £300m recovery package, and there will be £25m new funding to support grassroots football - enough to build around 700 new pitches across the UK.
• As Covid-19 vaccinations keep rolling out,an extra £1.65bn will be allocated to help the government reach its target of offering a first dose to every adult by 31 July. And some of the money will be used for a trial to see if different vaccine doses can be mixed.

Laura Kuenssberg
Political editor

Image source, Reuters

Rishi Sunak will keep spending, and spending big.

The urgent question - whether families and businesses keep receiving state support has broadly at least been answered.

The furlough goes on, the universal credit top up continues, likely for another six months.

Where the chancellor’s response is less clear, and will likely be less complete, is just how he proposes to achieve another of his stated aims - starting the job of fixing the public finances.

There is no intense political pressure to close the yawning gap between what fills the government’s coffers, and what it has been spending.

Yet, Rishi Sunak wants to show his party, and the public, that he cares about balancing the books, at least one day - even contemplating raising taxes soon on business in hard times.

But even with Rishi Sunak’s apparent love of slick marketing, being tough and generous is a slogan for chancellors that rarely comes true.

As Boris Johnson has just a couple more questions from MPs, we're going to pause our coverage of this week's PMQs, and turn our attention back to the main event today - the Budget statement.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is due to be on his feet in a couple of minutes - do stay with us.

The SNP MP Patrick Grady says Scottish Conservatives are sending campaign leaflets arguing that "a vote for the Tories is a vote to stop an independence referendum."

He asks the PM if that means an SNP victory in the coming elections will be a mandate for another independence referendum.

Boris Johnson says most will think it is "extraordinary" that the SNP are calling for another referendum.

Image source, HoC

Labour's Grahame Morris calls for a "proportional property tax" to replace council tax, which he says places an "unfair burden" on people in the poorest communities.

Boris Johnson replies that what the country needs is "councillors who charge you less while providing better services".

Image source, HoC

Joining by video link, DUP Westminster leader Sir Geoffrey Donaldson says the Northern Ireland Protocol is doing "damage" to political institutions in Northern Ireland and asks what the PM will do to ensure the nation has "unfettered access to goods from Great Britain".

Boris Johnson says the position of Northern Ireland in the UK internal market is "rock-solid and guaranteed".

He adds that the government is working on protecting the market in some areas including food supply.

Image source, HoC

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford says 100,000 people have been killed in the war in Yemen, with many children "at death's door". He adds that the government has "shamelessly" backed the Saudi government and asks the PM to reverse cuts to international aid.

Boris Johnson says that, on Monday, the government will provide cash support for 1.5 million people in Yemen.

Blackford says coronavirus has hit poor countries hardest and asks why the PM is "breaking his own manifesto commitment" to help the world's poorest.

Johnson says the pandemic has placed strains on the public finances, but the UK is doing everything it can to help Yemen.

Sir Keir Starmer says Britain should be "a moral force for good in the world" and calls on the PM to put his aid cuts to a vote in the House of Commons

Boris Johnson says the UK is "spending more than virtually any other country in the world on aid".

He argues that people in the country think he has got his priorities right.

Image source, HoC

Sir Keir Starmer says the government has halved international aid to Yemen. He urges the PM to "do the right thing and reconsider this urgently".

Boris Johnson says the UK is giving £240m to Yemen this year and that people should be "very, very proud of what we're doing".

Sir Keir Starmer asks how the government can justify cutting aid to people in Yemen.

Boris Johnson replies that the government has increased aid spending to "the highest proportion in the history of our country".

He adds that "straitened circumstances mean we must temporarily reduce our aid spending".

Image source, HoC

The Labour leader says the system on arms sales is "not robust" and the UK is increasingly "isolated" in selling them to Saudi Arabia.

The PM replies that the government "continues to follow" the "consolidated guidance" on such matters set up by Labour when it was in power.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says the UK sold £1.4bn arms to Saudi Arabia in three months last year.

"Why does the PM think it is right to be selling these weapons," he asks.

Boris Johnson says the UK is following the humanitarian guidance in respect of arms sales.

He says people can be "hugely proud of what we are doing to support the people of Yemen".

Image source, HoC

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer asks if the PM agrees with US President Joe Biden that the sale of arms which could be sold for use in the war in Yemen should be banned.

Boris Johnson replies that the UK has scrupulously followed the rules on arms sales.

You can read more on the issue here.

Image source, HoC

Prime Minister Boris Johnson begins by noting that it is three years since the Novichok attack in Salisbury. He pays tribute to those affected by the incident

The first question comes from Labour MP Kim Johnson who asks if the British government will apologise for the force repatriation of Chinese seamen from Liverpool in the 1940s.

The prime minister replies that he has "happy memories of my own visits to Liverpool" and adds that the whole country is "very grateful to the Chinese community for their amazing contribution".

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle now stands to announce the beginning of Prime Minister's Questions.

Stick with us for the latest updates.

Jonathan Blake
BBC political correspondent

On Budget day, Prime Minister's Questions is more of a warm up act than the main attraction.

With Nicola Sturgeon facing a grilling at the Holyrood inquiry in Edinburgh, PMQs is arguably third on the bill of blockbuster political events today.

But Boris Johnson will no doubt face pressing questions from Sir Keir Starmer about the government's response to the pandemic.

The Labour leader may be keen to press the prime minister on concerns about the Brazilian variant of Covid-19.

His criticism and questioning of the heavily trailed Budget announcements is likely to wait until after the chancellor has spoken.

But Labour's uncertain position on one of Rishi Sunak's possible measures, a rise in corporation tax, could give the Prime Minister an opportunity to try to undermine his opponent.

Laura Kuenssberg
Political editor

The never knowingly under-hyped Rishi Sunak will give what he has already described as a "Budget like no other".

The Covid-19 crisis has certainly led him to do things that no other Conservative chancellor has.

The government shut down much of the economy, meaning shops were shuttered, tills were empty, incomes collapsed.

It filled much of the gap with an alphabet soup of what the Treasury would drily term "interventions" - CBILS, CJRS, SEISS, the CCFF, and so on - essentially different ways of filling people's pockets with enormous amounts of cash in a time of crisis.

Alongside that there have been the huge costs of PPE, the test-and-trace programme and vaccines.

Some people, some of the self-employed for example, have not been caught by the safety net stitched together at high speed.

But there is no doubt that it has made a huge difference in the last year. One senior minister, perhaps not that modestly, suggests: "One day we will be through this, and we will look back and realise that we prevented mass unemployment."

There was a feeling at the start of the pandemic that there was no choice. And, with the country still in lockdown, that logic persists.

So, however the chancellor presents his decisions on Wednesday, extending emergency support is a political no-brainer, over which he has simply had not much choice.

And this time, perhaps, he has to get out ahead of the argument, rather than risk being dragged there as schemes get close to their end dates.

Read Laura's blog in full here.

Image source, Reuters

The prime minister has just left No 10 Downing Street to head to the Commons for this week's Prime Minister's Questions.

We'll bring you all the exchanges from 12:00 GMT - the chancellor's Budget immediately follows PMQs.

Image source, Getty Images

There are expectations that the chancellor will raise UK corporation tax to help plug the biggest shortfall in the country’s public finances since the Second World War.

But how far will Rishi Sunak go as he balances restoring the economy while attracting business to post-Brexit Britain?

At the moment, the UK rate of is the lowest of the G7 group of the world’s wealthiest nations:

• UK: 19%
• Italy: 24%
• France: 26.5%
• Canada: 26.5%
• US: 27%
• Germany: 30%
• Japan: 30.6%

Some suggest, external that Rishi Sunak could lift the rate to 25% from the current 19%, which would raise around £12bn over the current parliament to 2024. It would be higher than Italy but below the G7 average of 26.5%.

As BBC’s business editor Simon Jack points out, corporation tax contributes just 8% of all the tax the government collects. In contrast, 45% comes from income tax and National Insurance.

But after this past 12 months, every little helps.

Image source, PA Media

In England and Northern Ireland the tax you pay when you buy a property is known as stamp duty. In Scotland and Wales it's known as land and buildings transaction tax, and land transaction tax respectively.

The chancellor is expected to make an announcement on temporary changes to stamp duty in England and Northern Ireland.

The amount you depends on the value of the property, and where you are in the UK.

In England and Northern Ireland, stamp duty is currently not paid on the first £500,000 of any main residential property. The taxes in Scotland and Wales kick in at £250,000.

In July 2020 the UK government temporarily increased the point at which the tax is paid, to help boost the housing market.

But the changes are due to expire on 31 March.

The chancellor is also expected to announce a mortgage guarantee scheme to help people with small deposits get on the property ladder, with incentives for lenders to offer more 95% loans.