Another 2 cut in the pound in National Insurance , the National Insurance, the centrepiece of his pre election budget. But figures suggest expected rises in council tax will wipe out any benefits felt by households. Speaking after his statement in the commons today, jeremy hunt said his budget marks a big reduction in the tax bill for ordinary families. Families. What you see is that after a four percentage point cut in National Insurance , there is National Insurance, there is a big reduction in the tax bill for ordinary families , and that for ordinary families, and that is because the economy has turned a corner. Weve stuck to the plan we have. The forecasts are much more optimistic for the economy going forward. And as conservatives, we believe that if we bring down the tax burden that will fire up the economy, create more jobs, more money for pubuc create more jobs, more money for Public Services like the nhs, one more. So what are the key elements of other parts of the Spring Budget . Well, the non dom tax status is to be scrapped and replaced by what the chancellor calls a modern residency system. The Great British pub will also get a boost from freeze on alcohol duty child benefit threshold goes up to £60,000 a yean threshold goes up to £60,000 a year, and the £0. 05 cut to fuel dufies year, and the £0. 05 cut to fuel duties locked in for another 12 months. Also in the budget, the vat registration threshold goes up from 85 to £90,000 a year. The pensions regulator will get new powers to make sure people get defined contributions and better value from their investments. And theres a new isa scheme with a £5,000 yearly allowance for investments in britain and the nhs. It systems will get a £35 million upgrade. So now the house of lords has once again moved to hold up the governments rwanda bill as the archbishop of canterbury, a leading critic of the legislation, was told to check his white privilege. Tonights his white privilege. Tonights ninth defeat follows previous setbacks. This week, setting the stage for an extended battle between the commons and the house of lords. Downing street says peers should work with mps to protect innocent lives after rishi sunak made stopping the boats a key pledge of his leadership group. Five people have been arrested for spraying red paint on a government building in scotland in a pro palestinian protest, the activists scaled Queen Elizabeth house in edinburgh, replacing the union flag with a palestinian one. The demonstrators say the uk government is complicit in the gaza conflict and call for a boycott of Companies Supporting israel. It follows calls from downing street for a sustained humanitarian pause to be agreed as quickly as possible to allow the safe release of israeli hostages and a significant increase in aid to gaza. Let me just bring you some breaking news regarding events in newham, in east londons happening tonight. We understand a great number of fire appliances. The official word at this stage from the london fire brigade is that there are 35 fire engines and 175 firefighters, all battling a blaze at a Police Station. Its in forest gate in the east of the city. Its just north of london city airport. If youre watching on tv, you can see the latest pictures coming to us from the scene of the blaze, where the roof of that Police Station is engulfed in flames and billowing heavy smoke. The London Fire Service brigade is urging residents to avoid the area and keep windows and doors shut. We know road closures are also in place. Were still awaiting confirmation on the cause of that fire. It is, of course, going to be investigated. Any more developments on that fire of the forest gate Police Station in east london, and we will bring them to you for the latest stories. Do sign up to gb news alerts, scan the qr code on your screen or go to gb news. Common alerts. Alerts. My test for todays budget was could it have been delivered by Rachel Reeves . Was there really going to be an important difference between what a brave, bold conservative chancellor would do and what a cautious, brownite socialist chancellor would do . And yes, there was one important difference. That was the cut in National Insurance, the cut in National Insurance, the 2 off reducing it to 8, and with the implication that it may be abolished altogether, which is a really very important implication and would be a fundamental change and improvement in our tax system. But overall, the budget was constrained by the way we now construct Economic Policy. We have deified the obr, the office of budget responsibility , which of budget responsibility, which is unfortunately useless. It gets all its forecasts wrong, as indeed the chancellor pointed out in his budget statement. And david davis, david davis, magisterially, explained in his speech on the budget later, and that means that youre making these decisions on forecasts that will turn out not to be true, and you end up making little decisions thinking the forecasts are right , when forecasts are right, when actually the little decisions dont really matter. So so im very much in favour of the vat threshold being increased so that Small Businesses have an opportunity to grow businesses up and down the country, turn away opportunities when it gets to february and march because they dont want to go over the vat threshold, taking it up to £90,000 was a good start. It £90,000 was a good start. It cost £150 million, but that out of a 1. 216 trillion budget expenditure budget is a rounding error. Its 0. 01. It doesnt matter and the idea that you can make these very precise forecasts and add up little bits here and little bits there, and then say we are meeting our rules actually doesnt work. It doesnt make any sense. You need to look at the big picture and try and get fundamental reform, taking into account where youre starting from and where youre starting from and where youre starting from and where youre starting from is that we are spending too much 44. 5 of gdp for 20 2324. The £1. 216 billion that i mentioned is more than the country can sensibly afford. And its why weve got taxation at the highest level since 1948. It isnt going to exceed it. So it isnt going to exceed it. So we wont be able to say its the highest taxation level in the post war period, but its not much below. And until we look at much below. And until we look at fundamental reform, what we do, nickel and diming wont make a lot of difference. What we need is Economic Growth , because if is Economic Growth, because if you can grow the pie and this is what nigel lawson did, if you can grow the pie, then when you have more money to spend on pubuc have more money to spend on Public Services and to apply where you want, but you can also reduce the tax burden. Now, the tax burden is best applied if its applied sensibly and uniformly , warmly. And what uniformly, warmly. And what i dont like about this budget is the endless tinkering, the little bits here and the little bit there. So yes, i was pleased bit there. So yes, i was pleased that Capital Gains tax on property from which i may marginally benefit myself, just so that, you know , went down and so that, you know, went down and that the treasury and the obr had agreed that there was a laffer effect and that it would raise more money, but why not take it down to 20 . So you only have one rate of cgt . Why carry on with this muddling the tourism tax that we still have would boost the economy if we got rid of it. The silliness over non doms non doms contribute to the economy. They contribute to the economy. They should be welcome when weve got the obr forecasting 350,000 immigrants coming in every year, many of whom make a negligible economic contribution, making it harder for non doms who in very small numbers make a very big contribution. Ian is really bad contribution. Ian is really bad policy and then weve got all these costs of net zero and the high cost of energy and entries in the government accounts that are bizarre. They have revenues of 11 billion for environmental charges and costs of 11 billion for environmental charges. What are doing . Why is the are we doing . Why is the government charging itself this sort what is the sort of money . What is the point . We need to have a pro growth Economic Policy that has simple, straightforward taxation that people can understand. Back to the lawson model. We need to have cheap model. We need to have cheap energy. We need to control government expenditure. We must government expenditure. We must get more productivity out of the pubuc get more productivity out of the public sector, which is lower now than it was pre the pandemic and has not increased since 1997. Until we get all this right, the budgets will essentially be tinkering. And yes, there was one thing that Rachel Reeves wouldnt have done, but only the one thing as even done, but only the one thing as ever. Let me know your thoughts. Male margaret gb news. Com and im now joined by Helen Dewdney , im now joined by Helen Dewdney, the consumer expert also known. Im a rather reticent about saying this as complaining cow. That sounds a bit rude. Helen i dont wish to offend you as you come on, but what do you think about the budget and how will it help consumers . Well, theres a little bit of good news for the consumers in that, you know, theres, no, no movement fuel oil and movement on fuel oil and alcohol. So that will be of good to news some. Theres a little bit in the National Insurance obviously coming down, but the tax bracket is not going up. So were not necessarily going to see that everybodys going to benefit from that. And i think a lot of consumers would have liked to have seen some some of those , tax rises and savings those, tax rises and savings going into the, local authorities. And would you , are you more and would you, are you more concerned about fiscal drag in the effect that thats having on individuals or giving more money to local authorities, which i certainly wouldnt do because i think local authorities are incompetent. Well, having worked in one for some years, years ago, there is certainly some incompetency in councils. I would certainly agree. However, we are also agree. However, we are also seeing a lot of people suffering. Were seeing the people that are not getting the social care. Were seeing education and Mental Health really , you know, right at right really, you know, right at right at the end there, were seeing children waiting for, you know, Mental Health diagnosis and help, you know, for months and months in some cases, years. So actually, i do believe that some of us would actually like to see some of those services receive some of those services receive some funding , that they can some funding, that they can support children and families and some children and families will be helped by the changes in on child benefit. I mean, its marginal, but that will help people between 50 and £60,000 of income. And £60,000 of income. Yeah. So we are seeing that that the 50 is going up and that the im glad to see that the chancellor is looking at consultation for this anomaly where a single parent household can be taxed far more on their childrens, on their child benefit than a than a household thats got two incomes coming in at 49. 99, each. So its good to see that that will happen. But i still think that, you know, at the other end where, you know, were seeing people with disabilities, people who are vulnerable, that they arent there. There was nothing in the budget for them , and nothing budget for them, and nothing much for people who have retired because they dont benefit from the National Insurance card. And also also. Yeah. And you could say another vulnerable group. I think its the its the vulnerable groups here that have really missed out in the budget. Thank very much, well, thank you very much, helen. Delighted now to be helen. Im delighted now to be joined by the economist and Senior Adviser and indeed founder economics, founder of capital economics, englands distinguished englands most distinguished economist, roger bootle. Roger, thank you coming in. What do thank you for coming in. What do you think the chancellor should have done that would have had a bigger Economic Impact . Well, lets start by saying that he was hemmed in by his own fiscal rules. Now you criticise fiscal rules. Now you criticise the obr with some good reason , the obr with some good reason, but i think, you know, you can overdo that. I mean the tories, your party set up the obr. I thought it was a good idea at the time. So did i. And actually i still think to some extent its a good idea. And i think there in principle at the beginning to overspending beginning to stop overspending and labour and over borrowing by a labour government. Thought it was government. And i thought it was well by robert chote, who well run by robert chote, who i thought what he was doing. Thought knew what he was doing. I think its less well run now, but ill leave it there. Right, but given those all right, but given those constraints, there a constraints, there wasnt a great could whats great deal he could do. Whats really disappointing, think really disappointing, i think about government, the about this government, is the failure grips with the failure to get to grips with the fundamentals, and the fundamentals, and the fundamentals really concern Government Spending. You cannot Government Spending. You cannot get the tax burden substantially lower , which is what both you lower, which is what both you and i want, unless you control Government Spending. And that, im afraid, means cuts and were not having cuts, a great deal of fuss is being made about the growth of Government Spending being held to only 1 real. Thats quite low in relation to an economy thats growing fast, but we arent growing fast. So i think frankly, its missing the target now over and above that, given all those constraints, i agree with you. There were agree with you. There were a series of small things he could have done. Now, why increase the vat threshold for registration from 85 to 90,000 . What do we think thats going to do . Very, think thats going to do . Very, very little. I mean, if it doubled it, that would have made a huge difference. And john redwood was asking for it to go up to say, 150,000, which i was strongly supporting, which i was strongly supporting, which would really help Small Businesses. I agree. So all this was really very disappointing, i must say. I thought it was a remarkable theatrical performance from the chancellor. How hes got the brass neck to stand there and talk about lower taxes and reducing the debt burden. When of course, taxes as a share of gdp are rising and so is the debt burden. Its exactly the opposite of what he said. Opposite of what he said. Yes, indeed. And but he he came up with some reason as to how he could explain it away. There were some, figures on individual taxation that proved useful to him, but it seemed to me everything was being done by halves. The vat you mentioned, i agree, the reducing Capital Gains tax on, property that isnt your primary residence. And then this weird thing on stamp duty for if youre buying lots of houses, well, you just make it lots of individual transactions dont you . Yeah. I thought that was very strange. But the my greatest puzzle was over National Insurance, because i agree with you. I think is a good you. I think this is a good measure. I think he did the right thing to cut National Insurance rather than income tax, of course it does tax, although of course it does no and no favours to pensioners. And following autumns following on from last autumns reduction , i thought to myself reduction, i thought to myself gosh, i can now this far in begin to see a conservative vision which is for long time economists have talked about wanting to merge income tax and National Insurance, and it was going to be very difficult to do. Now, heres the way to do it by abolishing National Insurance. But he didnt mention that objective. That as an objective. Well, i mentioned in my no. Well, i mentioned in my monologue was the monologue that this was the vision because you mentioned it to we were chatting to me when we were chatting beforehand and between beforehand. And between us, weve up with the weve had to come up with the rather brilliant that rather brilliant vision that the chancellors wont chancellors got. But he wont tell wont tell us no, tell us. He wont tell us no, you mentioned taxes down. You mentioned to get taxes down. We to cut spending. Where we have to cut spending. Where would you cut spending . Well , i say cut would you cut spending . Well, i say cut spending. Theres another way. And the two are related. Weve got a very high rate of people not working in this country, many of them drawing benefits. So i think we have to tackle that first of all. And there was nothing in todays budget on that. By the way , and weve got to tackle it way, and weve got to tackle it through mixture. I think of through a mixture. I think of sticks carrots. Now, of sticks and carrots. Now, of course, if you get people off benefits into work , that gives benefits into work, that gives you sorts of benefits. It you two sorts of benefits. It reduces welfare bill. It reduces the welfare bill. It also generates taxes from people actually thats think actually working. Thats i think got at the centre of got to be at the centr