Key points from the Budget:
New National Living Wage of £7.20 for all workers aged over 25 to be introduced next April and to reach £9 an hour by 2020
Cuts in National Insurance for small firms to help them pay for living wage
More devolution to Northern cities and to Midlands as well as Cornwall
Discussions on devolution of services to Sheffield, Liverpool and West Yorkshire
£30m for new body to promote integrated transport – including use of Oyster cards – in the north of England
Elected mayors will have say on extension of Sunday trading hours
Increase in defence budget every year to meet 2% commitment to NATO
Deficit will be cut at same pace as in last Parliament
Borrowing for this year revised down to £65.9bn
Budget surplus planned by 2019-20 – a year later than forecast
UK economy grew by an 3% in 2014 – higher than forecast – and is forecast to grow by 2.4% this, the same as predicted in March, followed by 2.3% and 2.4% in the two following years
1 million extra jobs predicted to be created by 2020
Climate Change Levy exemption for renewable electricity to be removed.
National Insurance employment allowance for small firms to be increased by 50% to £3,000 from 2016
Public sector pay rises pegged at 1% a year for next four years
£1.5bn from clampdown on non-doms from 2017
Corporation tax to be cut to 19% in 2017 then 18% in 2020
Claims management companies will be more strictly regulated and insurance premium tax will be raised to 9.5% from November
New roads fund to be launched funded by vehicle excise duty
Fuel duty remains frozen for this year
New apprenticeship levy on larger businesses for the UK to ‘raise its game’ and address the skills gap
£50m to expand the number of cadet units in state schools to 500 and an extra helicopter for the Children’s Air Ambulance
From 2017, there will be a new £175,000 allowance on homes left to children or grandchildren, allowing £1m to be passed on tax free.
Working age benefits frozen for four years
