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No matter what’s going on in your life, something in today’s financial statement from Jeremy Hunt will have a real impact on how much money – if anything – is left for you each month to spend on the things you want.

Sky News has analysed the real budgets of three different households to see whether they end up better or worse off.

Linda Marshall

Linda is going to be better off overall, thanks in part to the continuation of the energy bill price cap, although it might not feel like that, as the government has not extended the Energy Bills Support Scheme.

We’ve not included that in our calculations as it was a planned change rather than anything that came out of today’s announcements.

“We were really relying on that £67 payment, which we’re going to be losing. It’s a lot of money. The cap is good but they’re taking it out with the other hand. I can’t see how I’m going to be better off at all really. I’m gutted,” she told Sky News.

Click here for our budget calculator to see if you are better or worse off

Linda receives a private pension and a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) to help with health issues that forced her to take early retirement in 2017, aged 55.

Linda’s husband Wayne works full-time for an electrical engineering company, and they also receive rent from Linda’s 38-year-old son Anthony, who moved back in last year due to the rising cost of living. Linda also cares for her grandson Jamie for two days in the week, to help out with childcare costs.

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The new energy cap, Linda’s biggest saving, helps all households. When the government first introduced the Energy Price Guarantee it said that at this point it would rise from £2,500 to £3,000, for a typical annual bill, to ease pressure on public funds. It’s now set to stay at £2,500.

Linda is benefiting from an uplift in her disability support payments, however, adding to extra support received last year.

Frozen tax thresholds mean that Linda’s husband will effectively pay an extra £170 in tax next year. As his salary rises with inflation, the amount he can take home before paying tax does not. More on that later on.

Mike Holden

Mike ends up worse off overall. He doesn’t mind so much as he’s in a comfortable situation, but was hoping to hear more support for those struggling.

“My concern is not for myself, I’m comfortably off. If fuel bills stay as they are I can survive, if they go up I can take the hit a little bit. People here [in Burnley] on minimum wage can’t afford to heat their homes or feed their kids.

“I was hoping for more support for those people rather than myself. I will rise over the bumps and I have a retirement coming up in a few years.”

Mike owns his own home and is the landlord for two others. He’s comfortable, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune from rising costs.

“Our day-to-day costs have doubled in the last 12 months, fuel costs have gone up 50%. And Liz Truss’s intervention cost me about £60,000 in lost pension pot,” he said.

Like Linda, he benefits from the energy price cap, but he loses out more from the tax threshold freeze. It will cost him more than £300 in real terms over the next 12 months.

Why is the tax threshold freeze so significant? As inflation rises so, typically, do wages. But in real terms, the value of money becomes less.

£10,000 will buy you about 10% less stuff than it did last year, for example.

In the UK you can earn £12,570 without paying tax. Typically that number, and the number at which you start paying a higher rate of tax (£50,270) rise each year to account for the fact that the money is worth less.

They haven’t this year and that affects all taxpayers, but could cost thousands for higher earners. It’s effectively a stealth tax.

Mike’s main concerns around the budget, however, are for those on lower incomes in his area, who he’s seen struggling to pay for the basics or even to feed their children.

“The stabilisation of the tax rate will cost me a bit of money, but I can tighten my belt a bit. People around here like Lianne don’t have more belt to tighten.”

Lianne Bruce

Lianne will end up better off than last year, mainly thanks to the fuel duty freeze. Her husband Damian is also self-employed, he has a removals company so spends a lot on diesel. Once more though, it doesn’t feel like things are getting any easier.

“It’s really testing times, especially being self-employed. I feel we’re always the ones left behind. You’re trying to do well for yourselves but you’re backpedalling all the time,” she told Sky News.

“The government needs to step up and help the working person. Costs are going up and up and up across the board and they make it sound like – because they’re keeping it at a level rate, not increasing it anymore – they’re doing us a favour, but they’re not. People are struggling.”

Lianne and Damian have a four-year-old daughter who started school this year. They won’t benefit from today’s announcement about childcare support.

Before she started school they paid £100 for two days of childcare a week. Lianne had to go part-time with her work because it was unaffordable to pay for more.

What the family lose from the tax threshold freeze is offset by what they gain from an uplift in child benefit, energy prices and fuel prices.

Fuel duty is the amount of tax that the government charges drivers when they buy petrol. When petrol prices started rising the government lowered the amount of tax it gets, per litre, but planned to raise it back again.

The government announced today that they will no longer do that, which is especially important to Lianne’s husband Damian with his driving-intensive job. Raising the duty as planned would have cost the family over £200 more a year.

Prices are still significantly higher than they were before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however.

“People are already at breaking point. For people on the borderline, if things get any worse I dread to think what’s to come,” Lianne added.

Follow more of Sky News’s reaction to the budget on our live page.


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

The bosses of four of Britain’s biggest banks are secretly urging the chancellor to ditch the most significant regulatory change imposed after the 2008 financial crisis, warning her its continued imposition is inhibiting UK economic growth.

Sky News has obtained an explosive letter sent this week by the chief executives of HSBC Holdings, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK in which they argue that bank ring-fencing “is not only a drag on banks’ ability to support business and the economy, but is now redundant”.

The CEOs’ letter represents an unprecedented intervention by most of the UK’s major lenders to abolish a reform which cost them billions of pounds to implement and which was designed to make the banking system safer by separating groups’ high street retail operations from their riskier wholesale and investment banking activities.

Their request to Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, to abandon ring-fencing 15 years after it was conceived will be seen as a direct challenge to the government to take drastic action to support the economy during a period when it is forcing economic regulators to scrap red tape.

It will, however, ignite controversy among those who believe that ditching the UK’s most radical post-crisis reform risks exacerbating the consequences of any future banking industry meltdown.

In their letter to the chancellor, the quartet of bank chiefs told Ms Reeves that: “With global economic headwinds, it is crucial that, in support of its Industrial Strategy, the government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy removes unnecessary constraints on the ability of UK banks to support businesses across the economy and sends the clearest possible signal to investors in the UK of your commitment to reform.

“While we welcomed the recent technical adjustments to the ring-fencing regime, we believe it is now imperative to go further.

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“Removing the ring-fencing regime is, we believe, among the most significant steps the government could take to ensure the prudential framework maximises the banking sector’s ability to support UK businesses and promote economic growth.”

Work on the letter is said to have been led by HSBC, whose new chief executive, Georges Elhedery, is among the signatories.

His counterparts at Lloyds, Charlie Nunn; NatWest’s Paul Thwaite; and Mike Regnier, who runs Santander UK, also signed it.

While Mr Thwaite in particular has been public in questioning the continued need for ring-fencing, the letter – sent on Tuesday – is the first time that such a collective argument has been put so forcefully.

The only notable absentee from the signatories is CS Venkatakrishnan, the Barclays chief executive, although he has publicly said in the past that ring-fencing is not a major financial headache for his bank.

Other industry executives have expressed scepticism about that stance given that ring-fencing’s origination was largely viewed as being an attempt to solve the conundrum posed by Barclays’ vast investment banking operations.

The introduction of ring-fencing forced UK-based lenders with a deposit base of at least £25bn to segregate their retail and investment banking arms, supposedly making them easier to manage in the event that one part of the business faced insolvency.

Banks spent billions of pounds designing and setting up their ring-fenced entities, with separate boards of directors appointed to each division.

More recently, the Treasury has moved to increase the deposit threshold from £25bn to £35bn, amid pressure from a number of faster-growing banks.

Sam Woods, the current chief executive of the main banking regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority, was involved in formulating proposals published by the Sir John Vickers-led Independent Commission on Banking in 2011.

Legislation to establish ring-fencing was passed in the Financial Services Reform (Banking) Act 2013, and the regime came into effect in 2019.

In addition to ring-fencing, banks were forced to substantially increase the amount and quality of capital they held as a risk buffer, while they were also instructed to create so-called ‘living wills’ in the event that they ran into financial trouble.

The chancellor has repeatedly spoken of the need to regulate for growth rather than risk – a phrase the four banks hope will now persuade her to abandon ring-fencing.

Britain is the only major economy to have adopted such an approach to regulating its banking industry – a fact which the four bank chiefs say is now undermining UK competitiveness.

“Ring-fencing imposes significant and often overlooked costs on businesses, including SMEs, by exposing them to banking constraints not experienced by their international competitors, making it harder for them to scale and compete,” the letter said.

“Lending decisions and pricing are distorted as the considerable liquidity trapped inside the ring-fence can only be used for limited purposes.

“Corporate customers whose financial needs become more complex as they grow larger, more sophisticated, or engage in international trade, are adversely affected given the limits on services ring-fenced banks can provide.

“Removing ring-fencing would eliminate these cliff-edge effects and allow firms to obtain the full suite of products and services from a single bank, reducing administrative costs”.

In recent months, doubts have resurfaced about the commitment of Spanish banking giant Santander to its UK operations amid complaints about the costs of regulation and supervision.

The UK’s fifth-largest high street lender held tentative conversations about a sale to either Barclays or NatWest, although they did not progress to a formal stage.

HSBC, meanwhile, is particularly restless about the impact of ring-fencing on its business, given its sprawling international footprint.

“There has been a material decline in UK wholesale banking since ring-fencing was introduced, to the detriment of British businesses and the perception of the UK as an internationally orientated economy with a global financial centre,” the letter said.

“The regime causes capital inefficiencies and traps liquidity, preventing it from being deployed efficiently across Group entities.”

The four bosses called on Ms Reeves to use this summer’s Mansion House dinner – the City’s annual set-piece event – to deliver “a clear statement of intent…to abolish ring-fencing during this Parliament”.

Doing so, they argued, would “demonstrate the government’s determination to do what it takes to promote growth and send the strongest possible signal to investors of your commitment to the City and to strengthen the UK’s position as a leading international financial centre”.

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

The Post Office will next week unveil a £1.75bn deal with dozens of banks which will allow their customers to continue using Britain’s biggest retail network.

Sky News has learnt the next Post Office banking framework will be launched next Wednesday, with an agreement that will deliver an additional £500m to the government-owned company.

Banking industry sources said on Friday the deal would be worth roughly £350m annually to the Post Office – an uplift from the existing £250m-a-year deal, which expires at the end of the year.

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The sources added that in return for the additional payments, the Post Office would make a range of commitments to improving the service it provides to banks’ customers who use its branches.

Banks which participate in the arrangements include Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK.

Under the Banking Framework Agreement, the 30 banks and mutuals’ customers can access the Post Office’s 11,500 branches for a range of services, including depositing and withdrawing cash.

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The service is particularly valuable to those who still rely on physical cash after a decade in which well over 6,000 bank branches have been closed across Britain.

In 2023, more than £10bn worth of cash was withdrawn over the counter and £29bn in cash was deposited over the counter, the Post Office said last year.

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A new, longer-term deal with the banks comes at a critical time for the Post Office, which is trying to secure government funding to bolster the pay of thousands of sub-postmasters.

Reliant on an annual government subsidy, the reputation of the network’s previous management team was left in tatters by the Horizon IT scandal and the wrongful conviction of hundreds of sub-postmasters.

A Post Office spokesperson declined to comment ahead of next week’s announcement.

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Trump trade war: How UK figures show his tariff argument doesn’t add up

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Trump trade war: How UK figures show his tariff argument doesn't add up

As Chancellor Rachel Reeves meets her counterpart, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent to discuss an “economic agreement” between the two countries, the latest trade figures confirm three realities that ought to shape negotiations.

The first is that the US remains a vital customer for UK businesses, the largest single-nation export market for British goods and the third-largest import partner, critical to the UK automotive industry, already landed with a 25% tariff, and pharmaceuticals, which might yet be.

In 2024 the US was the UK’s largest export market for cars, worth £9bn to companies including Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley and Aston Martin, and accounting for more than 27% of UK automotive exports.

Little wonder the domestic industry fears a heavy and immediate impact on sales and jobs should tariffs remain.

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Chancellor’s trade deal red lines explained

American car exports to the UK by contrast are worth just £1bn, which may explain why the chancellor may be willing to lower the current tariff of 10% to 2.5%.

For UK medicines and pharmaceutical producers meanwhile, the US was a more than £6bn market in 2024. Currently exempt from tariffs, while Mr Trump and his advisors think about how to treat an industry he has long-criticised for high prices, it remains vulnerable.

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The second point is that the US is even more important for the services industry. British exports of consultancy, PR, financial and other professional services to America were worth £131bn last year.

That’s more than double the total value of the goods traded in the same direction, but mercifully services are much harder to hammer with the blunt tool of tariffs, though not immune from regulation and other “non-tariff barriers”.

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How US ports are coping with tariffs

The third point is that, had Donald Trump stuck to his initial rationale for tariffs, UK exporters should not be facing a penny of extra cost for doing business with the US.

The president says he slapped blanket tariffs on every nation bar Russia to “rebalance” the US economy and reverse goods trade ‘deficits’ – in which the US imports more than it exports to a given country.

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That heavily contested argument might apply to Mexico, Canada, China and many other manufacturing nations, but it does not meaningfully apply to Britain.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show the US ran a small goods trade deficit with the UK in 2024 of £2.2bn, importing £59.3bn of goods against exports of £57.1bn.

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IMF downgrades UK growth forecast

Add in services trade, in which the UK exports more than double what it imports from the US, and the UK’s surplus – and thus the US ‘deficit’ – swells to nearly £78bn.

That might be a problem were it not for the US’ own accounts of the goods and services trade with Britain, which it says actually show a $15bn (£11.8bn) surplus with the UK.

You might think that they cannot both be right, but the ONS disagrees. The disparity is caused by the way the US Bureau of Economic Analysis accounts for services, as well as a range of statistical assumptions.

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“The presence of trade asymmetries does not indicate that either country is inaccurate in their estimation,” the ONS said.

That might be encouraging had Mr Trump not ignored his own arguments and landed the UK, like everyone else in the world, with a blanket 10% tariff on all goods.

Trade agreements are notoriously complex, protracted affairs, which helps explain why after nine years of trying the UK still has not got one with the US, and the Brexit deal it did with the EU against a self-imposed deadline has been proved highly disadvantageous.

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