JEREMY Hunt thanked Sun readers in his Budget yesterday for helping him freeze fuel duty.
Hailing our Keep It Down crusade, the Chancellor saved every driver £100 a year by halting a potential 12p leap in duty.
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He pledged childcare and energy bill help but risked a row on the rich’s pensions.
With the UK officially swerving a recession, Mr Hunt used his Budget speech to hammer the “declinists” and vowed to “prove the doubters wrong.”
And the Chancellor thanked Sun readers for allowing him to stare down Treasury officials who wanted to raid their wallets.
With a better-than-expected financial forecast, motorists were given a £5billion reprieve — saving drivers £100 a year at the pump.
Mr Hunt said last night: “I know how much Sun readers are feeling the pinch right now.
“Whether you drive a van, a hatchback or a people carrier I know how much you need to be on the road.
“Keeping it down means hard-working people will have an extra £100 this year without having to cut down using their vehicle.”
Howard Cox, of FairFuelUK, said last night: “I am delighted our intense campaigning and lobbying with so many in-touch MPs has been highly effective.
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“Remember, this is a road user levy that hits the poor hardest and dictates economic growth.”
Delivering his first full Budget yesterday, Mr Hunt used the rest of £25billion improvement in the national finances to increase access to free childcare and relieve the pain of corporation tax rises.
A £7billion package of stay-in-work giveaways are designed to boost the workforce by at least 110,000 over five years.
But the Chancellor risked a major row by handing the very rich a £3.8billion tax cut on their pensions — to try to get doctors to work longer without getting clobbered in retirement.
His abolition of the lifetime allowance, which capped tax-free pension savings at £1million, will be welcomed by the highest earners in their 50s but keep just 15,000 of them in jobs.
Defence was handed £5billion extra, with £6billion to upgrade our nuclear deterrent.
Energy bills were frozen for three more months at a cost of £2.8billion, or £160 a household.
For businesses, a three-year temporary tax break will allow investment in plant and machinery to be written off against corporation tax.
The tax will rise from 19p to 25p in April, costing £10.7billion in 2024-25.
The moves came as watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility confirmed the UK will avoid a recession.
And in a huge relief for hard-hit households, the OBR said inflation would more than halve to 2.9 per cent by the year end.
It could even drop to 0.9 by the end of 2024.
But GDP will not return to pre-pandemic levels until the middle of next year.
And the tax burden will continue to suffocate workers and businesses as it hits a post-war high of 37.7 per cent of GDP in 2026.
Meanwhile, living standards are expected to fall by six per cent into 2024, the largest drop since records began.
There was also painful news for income taxpayers as the true horror of freezing rates was laid bare by the OBR.
That move, announced by Mr Hunt last year, will raise £29.3billion by 2027/8, the equivalent of lifting income tax by 4p.
More than three million people will be dragged into paying some income tax — with more than two million dragged into the 40 per cent higher rate.
And the OBR admitted that the tax burden was still predicted to reach record highs.
Meanwhile, debt payments are on pace to double to £114billion this year as interest rates lift the cost of the Covid response.
But a triumphant Mr Hunt told MPs: “I report today on a British economy which is proving the doubters wrong.
“In the autumn we took difficult decisions to deliver stability and sound money.
“The International Monetary Fund says our approach means the UK economy is on the right track.”
As economists revised their pessimistic predictions from last year, Mr Hunt said: “The declinists are wrong and the optimists are right.”
And he promised it was “this Government who fix the roof while the sun is shining”.
MPs gave his 60-minute address a cautious thumbs-up — hailing the childcare win, fuel duty freeze and energy bill help.
But ex-Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg warned: “It’s not all sweeties.
“Everybody is having a real-terms increase in their tax because of the failure to upgrade thresholds.”
And ex-minister Priti Patel, who had been leading a campaign to ditch the corporation tax rise, asked: “Why now?”
Tory Ranil Jayawardena said the move would make Britain less competitive and stifle job creation.
And Sir Keir Starmer accused Mr Hunt of dressing up stagnation as stability and said the economy needed major surgery after 13 years of the Tories.
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