Budget Statements can often be lengthy and packed full of information. So to find out the key measures in the budget statement, and how it might affect you, take a look at the key points announced, summarised below;
ECONOMY:
- Planned £4.4bn in credit cuts to be abandoned - taper and threshold rates for working tax credits and child tax credits remaining the same
- Government to breach overall welfare cap in first year but £12bn cuts target remains the same.
- UK is fastest-growing economy, alongside US, since 2010
- Growth of 2.4% forecast for 2015 - unchanged from June
- Growth in subsequent years forecast to be 2.4%, 2.5%, 2.4% and 2.3%
- Budget surplus of £10.1bn to be delivered by 2019-20
- Borrowing to total £73.5bn this year, falling subsequently to £49.9bn, £24.8bn and £4.6bn in subsequent years
- Debt to be lower in 2015-16 than 2014-15 and to fall every year after that
- Total spending to rise from £756bn this year to £821bn by 2019-20
- State spending to hit 36.5% in five years - down from 45% in 2010.
POLICE, SECURITY AND JUSTICE:
- Holloway women's prison in London to close as part of modernisation of prison estate
- No real-terms cuts in police budgets
- Forces expected to make efficiency savings by sharing resources
- Underused courts to be sold off, raising £700m
WELFARE:
- £12bn in targeted welfare savings to be delivered in full
- Housing benefit for new social tenants to be capped at same level as private sector
- Housing benefit and pension credit payments to be stopped for people who leave the country for more than one month
- Job centres to be co-located in council buildings
HEALTH:
- NHS budget to rise to £120bn from £101bn by 2019-2020
- NHS expected to make £22bn in efficiency savings
- Grants for student nurses to be scrapped and replaced by loans
- Goal of increasing student nurse numbers by 10,000
- New social care 'precept' in council tax of up to 2% to allow local councils to raise £2bn for social care
- Better Care Social Fund to be increased by 1.9%
- Upfront cash injection of £6bn next year
- NHS in England expected to make £22bn in efficiency savings
- An extra £600m earmarked for mental health services
- £15m raised from charging VAT on sanitary products to be given to women's health charities
EDUCATION:
- Schools budget in England protected in real terms
- New 30-hour free childcare subsidy for parents of three- and four-year-olds to be limited to those working more than 16 hours a week
HOUSING:
- New 3% surcharge on stamp duty for buy-to-let properties and second homes from April 2016, raising about £1bn
- Restrictions on shared ownership to be removed and planning system reformed to deliver more homes
- London Help to Buy scheme to offer interest-free loan worth up to 40% of the value of a newly built home
- Councils to receive an additional £10m to help homeless people
DEFENCE:
- Defence budget to rise from £34bn to £40bn
LOCAL GOVERNMENT:
- Local government to keep revenue from business rates by the end of the Parliament
- Local government spending, in cash terms, to be same in 2020 as 2015
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT:
- Environment and Energy departments to see day-to-day spending fall by 15% and 22% respectively
- Extra £200m funding for flood defence
BUSINESS:
- 26 new enterprise zones to be created
- Uniform business rates to be abolished.
- Elected mayors allowed to raise rates under certain conditions
- Business department funding to be cut by 17%
- Science budget to rise in real terms to £4.7bn
- Apprenticeship levy set at 0.5% of employer wage bill, with £15,000 allowance for all firms taking part
- Every individual and small business to have their own digital tax account by the end of the decade
PENSIONS:
- State pension to rise by £3.35 a week to £119.30 next year