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Chancellor Gordon Brown unveiled his seventh budget on Wednesday 9th April. Here’s an at-a-glance look at the budget.
Taxes
- Beer up 1p
- Wine up 4p a bottle
- Cider and sparkling wine tax frozen
- Spirits tax frozen
- 8p on a packet of cigarettes
- Bingo tax to be abolished on 4 August
- Income tax stays the same
- Inheritance tax - tax threshold up to £255 000
- Stamp duty frozen and a crackdown on stamp duty tax evasion
- Vehicle excise duty goes up by £5 on cars in May but stays on hold for lorries and motorbikes
Employment
- 25 000 more doctors, 88 000 more nurses by 2008, funded by the National Insurance increase
- Britain's unemployment is lower than the total in Japan and Eurozone and the lowest in the UK for a generation
Measures to tackle unemployment
- Jobcentres to get discretionary powers so they can adapt to the demands of their locality
- From next April, new housing benefit rules for people taking up jobs
- Unemployment benefit claimants to sign on weekly instead of fortnightly
- Young offenders will be offered training while detained and jobs on release in return for good behaviour
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- Government will make £170m to help people to upgrade their skills and move up the employment ladder
- Where there are skills shortages new measures will be introduced to attract people from abroad with the appropriate training
- Lone parents looking for work to get an extra £20 a week to help with their job search
Child poverty
- Every child born from today will get a child trust fund worth £500 for the poorest children
- Parents and grandparents will be able to contribute to the trust funds
- The UK is on track to meet the government's target for a 25% cut in child poverty
- Mr Brown said that economic strength and social justice were met when parents could balance work and family life
Pensioners
- Pension reduction during hospital stays abolished from today
- An extra annual payment of £100 to pensioners over 80, on top of the existing £200 winter fuel payment.
- All single pensioners with income below £139 a week and all couples below £203 a week will benefit from the new Pension Credit.
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