The Chancellor Philip Hammond delivered his first budget this lunchtime.
Here is a summary of what he said
The UK economy will grow by 2% in 2017. The OBR also forecast that the economy will grow at a slightly slower rate in 2018, before picking up to 2% in 2021.
Britain has a debt of nearly £1.7 trillion – around £62,000 for every household in the country.
The Chancellor has ccommitted to an additional £2b of spending for social care and £425m investment in the NHS in the next three years including £100m into A&E facilities next winter.
There will be new investment in technical education for 16-19 year old including new T-levels from autumn 2019. Students will be able to choose from 15 different routes such as construction, digital or agriculture.
The number of hours of training for these students will increase by over 50%. As part of the course, all students will take part in an industry work placement.
£300 million investment for new academic research placements and there is more money for schools, £320 million will go to setting up new free schools while £216 million will be invested in school maintenance.
There will be free transport for children from poorer families who go to selective schools while Tax-Free Childcare will soon be available to working parents
The Government is promising new ways to protect consumers
including preventing consumers being charged unexpectedly when a subscription is renewed or a free trial ends.
£270 million is being made available to launch the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund which will include developing artificial intelligence and robotics, designing and manufacturing better batteries for new electric vehicles and improving medicine manufacturing technologies to speed up patient access to drugs.
£16 million will be provided for a national 5G Innovation Network to trial new 5G technology and there will be £200 million for local projects to build fast and reliable full-fibre broadband networks.
There is more money for roads, £690 million peomised for new local transport projects, to improve congestion on roads and public transport,£90m coming to the North of England.
Now the bad bits, National insurance contributions will rise for the self-employed, self-employed workers will pay 11% by 2019 from the current 9%
However there are no changes to National Insurance paid by the employed and employers or to income tax or VAT and Personal tax-free allowances will rise as planned to £11,500 this year and to £12,500 by 2020.
Bad news for boozers thoug, the Chancellor has raised duty on beer and wine by 3.9%, the first increase since 2012.This will equate to 2p on a pint of beer, 1p on a pint of cider, 36p on a bottle of whisky and 32p on a bottle of gin.
