Did the last Budget bring growth and cheaper beer?

Mr Hunt highlighted the Office for Budget Responsibility's (OBR) forecast that inflation will be halved by the end of 2023.

Inflation, which was still above 10% when he presented his budget, had actually halved, reaching 4% by the end of the year.

The Prime Minister described pubs as “important community facilities” and announced draft relief would be made more generous from August 1, 2023.

This applies to alcoholic beverages that contain less than 8.5% alcohol and can be served on tap, such as beer and cider.

This relief reduced their tax bill by 9.2%. Mr Hunt said: “We are defending the price of a pint.”

However, beer prices continue to rise.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), prices in January 2024 rose by 7.5% compared to the same month last year, with prices rising every month throughout the year despite the easing of conscription.

However, the increase is still small compared to the 8.6% rise in beer sold in stores during the same period.

Emma McClurkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said the cut was a “valuable boost for breweries and pubs” but called for further reductions in beer duty.

According to BBPA figures, almost as many pubs closed in the UK in the second half of 2023 (266) as in the first half (265).

One of the biggest measures was to make additional childcare fees free.

From April 2024, eligible two-year-olds in England will be entitled to 15 hours of childcare per week during term time. More than 100,000 working parents have signed up.

This will be extended to parents of children aged 9 months to 2 years in September 2024 and increased to 30 hours per week in September 2025.

There are also complaints about labor shortages.

BBC analysis shows demand is likely to increase by around 15%, which would equate to more than 100,000 more children in full-time care once children turn nine months old in September 2025. It is estimated that.

Think tank Nesta estimates that around 27,500 early-career professionals will be needed in the UK to cope.

The total number of childcare staff in England increased by around 13,000 people overall from 2022 to 2023.

This was driven by an increase in the number of staff at private nursery schools and school corporation nursery schools. However, the number of childcare workers and volunteer group staff continues to decline, with 5,600 fewer people in 2023 than in 2022.

The government launched a campaign to hire more staff in February, but fledgling charities argued it was too late to help.

Mr. Hunt was asked by Laura Kuenssberg on March 3, 2024, if he could guarantee that he would receive free child care. “You can understand why I don't want to make absolute guarantees,” he said. “But do we have confidence that we will deliver this program and that it will be on track this April? Yes, we are.” he said.

“This is a big change. It could mean we need to hire an additional 40,000 people in this sector, which is why we are introducing them in phases,” he added.

One of the ways Mr Hunt said he intended to foster growth was by helping people return to work, including those who are not working due to disability or long-term illness.

His measures included an apprenticeship scheme for over-50s, the abolition of lifetime pension benefits and sanctions for benefit claimants who choose not to accept suitable job offers.

“There are more than 7 million working-age adults, excluding students, who are not employed,” he said.

We asked the Treasury what figures they were quoting and were told it was for December-January 2023, which is everyone not working minus students, but in reality it was 800. The number is close to 10,000 people.

Official figures show a slight decline in this number, but changes have been made to the data so they are not strictly comparable.

Mr Hunt also announced measures on energy bills, including stopping people who use prepaid meters from having to pay more for their energy bills than people who pay by direct debit.

“The energy surcharges paid by the poorest households are coming to an end,” Mr Hunt said.

And he did this in two stages. First, he changed the Energy Price Guarantee to temporarily remove the difference.

And in February 2024, the regulator Ofgem announced that from April the recurring charge differential previously paid by people using prepaid meters will be removed.

One of the big announcements in the 2023 budget was the “full expense'' option, which would allow companies to deduct the entire amount invested in equipment and machinery from their profits.

This means that for every £1 a business invests, their tax bill will be reduced by up to 25p.

“The impact on our economy will be huge,” Hunt said, citing the OBR as saying it would increase business investment by 3% a year.

This policy came into effect on April 1, 2023. The overall business investment level in 2023 was 6.1% higher than in 2022.

Carl Williams, research director at the Center for Policy Studies (CPS), welcomed the increase, saying: “Business investment has been flat for years, contributing to weak economic growth.”

He said it was too early to say how much of the increase would be fully spent, but said he expected the eventual increase to be about 1.5% annually.

We asked the Treasury Department for comment on the implementation of the 2023 budget measures.

“Our childcare reforms will save parents up to £6,500 on average, and our long-term decisions, including tax cuts for 29 million people and £11 billion in business tax cuts, will permanently add an extra 0.5%. Taxes are expected.” Increase output to the UK economy and increase the number of people working by around 200,000. ”