The team at Informed Choice will be providing regularly updated news, views and opinions on the key personal finance measures as Chancellor George Osborne delivers his fourth Budget to the House of Commons at 12.30pm on Wednesday 20th March 2013.
13:30 – We hope you found our Budget 2013 Live Blog useful. We now start work on preparing our Budget 2013 Briefing Note which will be available to download later this afternoon.
13:27 – Employment allowance worth up to £2,000 off employer National Insurance contributions from April 2014. Great news for small businesses!
13:25 – Income tax personal allowance to be raised to £10,000 from April 2014, also confirming what was reported in the Standard earlier.
13:22 – Chancellor confirms Evening Standard announcement that fuel duty increased planned for September has been scrapped, and beer duty escalator also scrapped. Beer duty cut by 1p – “we’re taking a penny off the pint”.
13:20 – This package of support for first time buyers is going to really fire up the property market. Help to Buy will apply to new builds described as a “dramatic intervention” to get the housing market going. Mortgage Guarantee added on top of this should make it much easier to get onto the property ladder.
13:16 – New lifetime cap on social care set at £72,000 to be introduced in 2016, asset threshold raised in that year to £118,000. These measures follow the proposals made in the Dilnot report.
13:15 – Compensation for policyholders of Equitable Life, extending help to those who bought with profit annuities prior to 1992, ex-gratia payments of £5,000 plus an extra £5,000 for those receiving Pension Credit.
13:13 – Osborne confirms the plans announced yesterday for tax-free childcare, new flat-rate state pension of £144 per week brought forward to 2016.
13:09 – Main rate of corporation tax being reduced to 20% in 2015, which we already knew about (thanks to the Evening Standard).
13:08 – Stamp duty on AIM shares is being abolished, which is good news for investors, although worth pointing out that these are higher risk investments.
13:07 – Employee ownership in businesses is going to be encouraged with a new capital gains tax relief for staff buying shares in their companies.
12:59 – Public sector pay rises will be capped at an average of 1% in 2015/16. With price inflation stubbornly above the 2% target, those working in the public sector are suffering real terms pay cuts. We expect to see a lot more industrial action following this news.
12:51 – Updated remit for the Monetary Policy Committee means a CPI inflation target of 2% and use of ‘unconventional monetary policy instruments’ to keep economy growing. Mark Carney will have his work cut out for him when he takes over at the Bank of England this summer.
12:49 – Fiscally neutral Budget measures mean the Chancellor will be giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
12:41 – OBR forecast is that we avoid a triple-dip recession in the UK, with GDP growth of 0.6% in 2013.They forecast growth of 1.8% in 2014 and 2.3% in 2015.
12:36 – George Osborne says he is going to level with us today about his plans for the economy, which are taking longer than expected to work.
12:33 – Oh dear, it appears that the Evening Standard has accidentally leaked the Budget. According to an image of their front page, the planned fuel duty hike will be scrapped, borrowing is up by £61bn, the income tax personal allowance will rise to £10,000 by 2014 and corporation tax will be cut to 20% by 2015.
12:07 – A lively Prime Ministers Questions contains plenty of questions about the proposed tax on savers in Cyprus. A Tory MP points out that the country has not ground to a halt today despite a public sector strike. Does this suggest room for more public spending cuts?
11:36 – The Chancellor has appeared in Downing Street with his red box and the BBC is reporting that his run through of the Budget during the Cabinet meeting this morning was well received, with the prime minister’s official spokesman saying: “You will see the government make its economic case, sticking to the course while continuing to support aspiration.”
10:01 – The Daily Mail is reporting that Osborne will ‘unlock’ Child Trust Funds and allow these to be transferred to Junior ISAs. If this is announced in the Budget today – assuming there is no lengthy and unnecessary consultation process – it is good news for parents with savings in CTFs and should help to simplify this market.
09:44 – The latest minutes from the Bank of England MPC meeting suggest they remain split on the issue of extending quantitative easing. The Bank believes that further QE could be “misinterpreted” as a lack of commitment to maintaining low inflation over the medium term. This could set the scene for an interesting battle between Treasury and BoE, should Osborne announce in his Budget of a review of BoE mandate to focus on economic growth.
08:08 – Good morning and welcome to our Budget 2013 Live Blog. There have been surprisingly few leaks ahead of the Budget this year. What we do expect to hear at lunchtime is grim figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility, an extra £2.5bn of spending cuts across government departments, and an extension in the income tax personal allowance to £10,000 introduced earlier than planned in 2014.
We also expect to hear about a freeze on beer tax, deferred fuel duty escalations, and proposals to overhaul the mandate for the Bank of England, to target economic growth as well as price inflation. Osborne will be hoping to grab some positive headlines this year, after the ‘omnishambles’ last year of the pasty and caravan taxes. Fewer leaks and briefings ahead of the Budget this year could mean Osborne has less to announce or could mean he is holding back some good news surprises for lunchtime today.
Photo credit: Flickr/The Prime Minister’s Office
