Budget 2023: The key points of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s speech

Published

2 years ago

March 15, 2023

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The chancellor has announced the budget for 2023.

The UK will now not enter a technical recession this year, the independent forecasters, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has said.

Inflation will more than halve and reduce to 2.9% by the end of the year, the OBR expects.

Budget live:
The announcements as they happen

Here are the key points:

Parents – working 16 hours a week – of children aged nine months to five years will get 15 hours free childcare to encourage caregivers to enter the workforce.

This will be staggered from April 2024 to ensure enough places. Children up to two years old will get 15 hours free from April 2024, children from nine months up will benefit from September 2024, and from September 2025 every single working parent of a child under five will have access to 30 hours free childcare per week.

The lifetime allowance – the total amount workers can accumulate in their pension savings before paying extra tax – has been abolished. Mr Hunt hopes it will stop 80% of NHS doctors from receiving a tax charge.

The pensions annual tax-free allowance will rise by 50% from £40,000 to £60,000.

Tax relief of 11p has been announced on draft drinks served in pubs from 1 August.

An extension of the 5p cut in fuel duty, at a cost of £6bn, has been announced for a year. Fuel duty will also be frozen for the next 12 months.

The government will abolish the work capability assessment for disabled people and separate benefit entitlement from an individual’s ability to work. The aim is to enable disabled people to seek work without fear of losing their benefits.

A new programme called universal support will also fund extra support for disabled people to find work.

A new apprenticeship, called a returnership, will be created for those aged 50 and older wanting to return to work. Mr Hunt said it will makes existing skills programmes more appealing for older workers and focus on previous experience.

An extra £400m will increase mental health and musculoskeletal workplace support to stop people being forced to leave work due to sickness.

As corporation tax on profits over £250,000 is due to rise from 19% to 25% in April, businesses will be able to offset 100% of UK investments against their profits to bring down tax bills. The OBR said it will increase business investment by 3% for every year. Mr Hunt announced the measure for the next three years but intends to make it permanent “as soon as we can responsibly do so”.

An “enhanced credit” has been introduced for small and medium-sized businesses if they spend 40% or more of their total expenditure on research and development. They can claim credit worth £27 for every £100 spent.

As expected, the government is extending the energy price guarantee (EPG) which keeps the average household bill at £2,500 until the end of June by capping the unit price of electricity. The typical bill was due to rise to £3,000 from 1 April. Under the EPG the government effectively caps household costs and reimburses energy companies for the difference between that, and the cost of buying power on wholesale markets.

The energy rebate scheme – paid direct to customers in six instalments of £66 and £67 a month – has not been extended and will end this month.

The so-called “prepayment premium”, whereby those using prepayment meters are charged more for their gas and electricity, will be scrapped from July, enabling four million families to save £45 a year on their bills.

Twelve new investment zones or “potential Canary Wharfs” will be eligible for £80m in funding to boost business there, with at least one each in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

There will also be £200m extra funding for local regeneration projects.

An extra £200m a year – in addition to the £500m already allocated – will be made available to tackle “the curse” of potholes.

Public leisure centres and pools will share a £63m fund to help with costs.

From next year medicines and technologies approved by other trusted global regulators will be eligible for “near automatic” sign-off.

Defence spending will rise to £11bn over the next five years.

World

Israel silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza

Published

6 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza

The targeted killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif and four other colleagues by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) late on Sunday silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza.

The IDF wasted no time in releasing a statement claiming it had “eliminated” Al-Sharif, calling him a “terrorist” who “posed” as a journalist for Al Jazeera.

Gaza latest: Follow live updates

The Committee to Protect Journalists warned in July that Al-Sharif was the victim of an Israeli smear campaign and that they feared for his safety.

The IDF had previously released documents which they say proved his involvement with Hamas.

No word from them on his colleagues – Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa – who they also killed. We are chasing.

Al-Sharif’s death – and that of his four colleagues – is a chilling message to the journalistic community both on the ground and elsewhere ahead of Israel’s impending push into Gaza City.

There will now be fewer journalists left to cover that story, and – if it is even possible – they will be that bit more fearful.

This is how journalists are silenced. Israel knows this full well.

It has also not allowed international journalists independent access to enter Gaza to report on the war.

Al-Sharif’s death has sent shockwaves across the region, where he was a household name. He was prolific on social media and had a huge following.

I was watching horrifying footage of the immediate aftermath of the strike in the taxi on my way into the bureau, and the driver told me how he and his family had all cried for Anas when the news came in.

His little daughter cried because of Al-Sharif’s little daughter, Sham, who she knew from social media.

“They call everyone Hamas,” my taxi driver said. “Men, women, children”.

Last month, Al-Sharif wrote this post: “I haven’t stopped covering [the crisis] for a moment in 21 months, and today I say it outright… and with indescribable pain.

“I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment… Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”

This is what journalists in Gaza are facing, every single day.

World

Israel’s PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Published

12 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

World

Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’

Published

18 hours ago

August 10, 2025