HARD-working Brits were handed a £450 tax boost today as Jeremy Hunt froze fuel duty for another year and overhauled child benefits.
In the giveaway Spring Budget the Chancellor also froze alcohol duty in a massive win for Sun readers after our campaigns to keep booze and fuel tax low.
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But there was a mega blow to smokers, as a new tax whacked on fags and vapes will see prices hit record levels.
In what could be the last Budget before Britain goes to the polls, Mr Hunt doubled last November’s 2p National Insurance cut — a saving of £900 a year for the average worker.
It came as the government’s economic watchdog confirmed that inflation should fall to below 2% in a few months’ time.
Spring Budget at a glance
Mr Hunt said: “Keeping taxes down matters to Conservatives in a way it never can for Labour.
“We believe that in a free society the money you earn doesn’t belong to the government.
“It belongs to you.
“And if we want to encourage hard work, we should let people keep as much of their own money as possible.”
Read More on Spring Budget
Taxes on beer, wine and spirits that were due to go up in August will now be frozen until February next year in a win for The Sun’s Save Our Sups campaign.
Most read in News Money
The move will benefit 38,000 boozers across the UK.
Mr Hunt said: “We value our hospitality industry and we are backing the great British pub.”
Fuel duty will also be frozen for another year, alongside the 5p cut, in another triumph for The Sun’s Keep It Down campaign.
The freeze will save the average car driver £50 next year and bring total savings since the 5p cut was introduced to around £250.
Spring Budget 2424: 27million workers are in line for a £450 wage boost thanks to a fresh National Insurance cut
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Mr Hunt thanked The Sun for being a champion for motorists through its decade-long campaign to keep duties down.
It was bad news for smokers, who face stumping up a record £16 a packet and a new tax on vapes.
But in brighter news for parents, the High-Income Child Benefit Charge threshold was raised from £50,000 to £60,000.
And the top of the taper at which the benefit is withdrawn was hiked from £60,000 to £80,000
The change means no one earning under £60,000 will pay the charge, taking 170,000 families out of having to pay it all together.
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The Chancellor also announced a “landmark” plan to cut down on waste and boost productivity in public services, including the NHS.
The strategy includes £3.4bn for the NHS to modernise its IT systems – and in turn unlock £35bn of savings.
The new tech system should slash 13 million hours currently lost by nurses and doctors every year to outdated computer systems.
And it will speed up results for 130,000 patients a year, potentially saving thousands of lives.
Mr Hunt said: “The NHS was there for us in the pandemic.
“And today with nearly £6bn of additional funding a Conservative government is there for the NHS.”
Analysis from The Sun’s Political Editor Harry Cole
SO Jeremy Hunt has fired the starting gun on the election campaign with a highly political Budget.
There was lots of shouting, but with the cupboard bare, not as many giveaways as a Chancellor would have liked on the eve of battle.
As he delivered what will likely be the last Budget before Britain goes to the polls this autumn, the glum faces behind him would suggest Tory MPs did not think it would be enough to turn around the Conservatives bleak numbers.
Even with some tax cuts, the problem the Government has is the tax burden still remains at the highest level since 1947.
And nobody really thinks that will be going down rather than up under Labour.
On top of that, the cold hard numbers are hard to spin.
The small print of the Budget shows an extra £186.6 billion in stealth taxes over the next five years: more than double what the combined £105.4 billion savings from the combined tax cuts last November and today.
Also painful is the OBR’s prediction that net migration is going to stay at around 300,000 indefinitely and Tory tax changes have actually made Britain’s workshy issues worse.
With more people being dragged into higher tax bands, it turns out fewer people are bothering to work harder.
But the shape of the Tory manifesto is coming into sight, with the abolition of National Insurance clearly going to feature as a flagship election issue.
The dual taxation of wages through NICS and Income Tax has been a long running quirk of our complex tax system, but abolishing it completely would be eye-wateringly expensive.
That said, Hunt has reduced it by 4p, down to 8p in the pound on earnings in just six months, hence why he is dangling the prospect of phasing it out completely over the five years.
But given there are huge bills coming down the path for national security, massive compensation payouts, and sustainable public spending, is that loss of Treasury revenue really credible?
I suspect we will spend a large part of the election campaign arguing about that.
Hunt peppered his hour-long speech with attacks on the opposition parties, and countless name checks – and real cheques – for key marginal seats the Government hope to save at the election.
Given how many times he mentioned his own seat in Surrey and the vicious pop at the Liberal Democrats who could oust him, its clear the Chancellor is as worried about his own seat as he is about anyone else’s.
It was the tetchiest Budget I can remember, with countless interventions from the Deputy Speaker needed after Labour heckled their way through the measures.
If this is the shape of the election campaign to come, it’s going to be a very long year…
In a boost for policing, more Violence Reduction Units will appear across England and Wales thanks to an additional £75m funding to crack down on crime.
And £230m will be spent on rolling out time and money saving technology for cops – including crime stopping drones.
The move should free up time equivalent to 20,000 officers over a year.
Mr Hunt fired the starting gun on months of election campaigning as he announced the Spring Budget.
The Chancellor hinted at Tory ambitions to scrap national insurance in its entirety.
His set piece Commons speech also branded Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer an enemy of business — but stole a number of his policies.
A loophole for mega-rich “non-doms” to not pay some taxes in the UK was reformed to raise £2.7bn for the Treasury.
And a windfall tax on oil and gas giants was extended until the end of the decade.
Labour have already said they would do the same and earmarked the cash for other projects, leaving a black hole in Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ spending plans.
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The Opposition said they thought the sweeteners meant PM Rishi Sunak was eyeing a May general election — but No10 last night pooh-poohed talk of an early poll.
The Chancellor, however, disappointed Tory MPs by refusing to slash income tax or unfreeze the thresholds at which its paid.
That is despite Mr Sunak vowing to reduce the base rate to 19 per cent by the end of this Parliament.
And despite the second cut in a few months, it will not stop the tax burden rising to 37 per cent of GDP by the end of the decade.
By 2028-29 there will be 2.7million more higher rate taxpayers and 600,000 more additional rate taxpayers.
There will also be a net increase in tax receipts of £19.7bn.
Mr Hunt told MPs now is the time to help families with “permanent cuts” to taxation.
He said: “Of course, interest rates remain high as we bring down inflation.
“But because of the progress we’ve made, because we are delivering the Prime Minister’s economic priorities, we can now help families not just with temporary cost of living support but with permanent cuts in taxation.
“We do this to give much needed help in challenging times.
“But also because Conservatives know lower tax means higher growth.
“And higher growth means more opportunity, more prosperity and more funding for our precious public services.”
The NI cut comes after a similar 2p reduction in last year’s Autumn Statement, that was seen in pay packets in January.
Mr Hunt painted Labour as the party holding back business with red tape and bureaucracy.
He said: “They will destroy jobs with 70 new burdens on employers, reduce opportunities by halving new apprenticeships and risk family finances with new spending that pushes up tax.
“Instead of going back to square one, our plans mean more investment, more jobs, more productive public services and lower taxes — sticking to our plan in a Budget for long term growth.”
Mr Hunt warned the public that a Labour government will increase borrowing to pay for public services — with the huge bill left outstanding for decades to come.
He added: “An economy based on sound money does not pass on its bills to the next generation.”
Shadow Chancellor Ms Reeves claimed the Budget is the “final chapter” of fourteen years that has left the country worse off.
She said: “Taxes are still rising, prices are still going up in the shops and mortgages are higher.
“Nothing Jeremy Hunt has said today changes that. It’s time for change.
“It’s time for an election.”
Sir Keir Starmer slammed Rishi Sunak and Mr Hunt as the “chuckle brothers of decline”.
He told the Commons: “The Chancellor, who breezes into this chamber in a recession and tells the working people of this country that everything’s on track. Crisis? What crisis? Or as the captain of the Titanic and the former Prime Minister herself might have said, iceberg? What iceberg?
“Smiling as the ship goes down, the chuckle brothers of decline, dreaming of Santa Monica or maybe just a quiet life in Surrey not having to self-fund his election.”
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Meanwhile experts gave the 2p NI cut a thumbs down, saying it was unlikely to be enough to shift dire poll ratings for the Tories.
But Mark Kent, of the Scotch Whisky Association, hailed the alcohol tax freeze, saying: “Support for Scotch is good for industry, good for the economy and good for consumers who enjoy a dram.”
