Music plays and the next president of zimbabwe, emmerson mnangagwa, is back in the country and will be sworn in on friday. And coming up on sportsday on bbc news countdown to midnight the ashes series gets underway. England captainjoe root says theyre ready to go. Good evening and welcome to the bbc news at six. A britain fit for the future thats what the chancellor has promised in todays budget. It had a few giveaways but was delivered against the backdrop of a faltering economy with lower than expected growth and falling productivity. Among Philip Hammonds announcements from now, First Time Buyers in england, wales and Northern Ireland will pay no stamp duty on homes up to £300,000, more in london. Scotland has a different system. For the nhs in england, the chancellor promised an extra £1. 6 billion over the next year, though thats still short of what the nhs says it needs. The wait for the welfare benefit universal credit which has attracted criticism from both sides of the house
Were at westminster in our Budget Studio on the day chancellor Philip Hammond delivered his first budget. As the government prepares to start the process of leaving the eu within weeks the chancellor said the budget prepared britain for a brighter future. Borrowing forecasts have been revised downwards for the next few years. Theres more money for social care in england and a controversial move to raise National Insurance contributions for Self Employed workers. Labour accused the chancellor of producing a Budget Of Utter Complacency which ignored a crisis in Public Services. Well have details and reaction from westminster and beyond. But first lets take a look at those key announcements made by the chancellor earlier this afternoon. The chancellor announced a 1 increase in National Insurance bills for many Self Employed people plans that would raise £145 million a year by 2021 22 a pledge which appears to contradict a conservative manifesto pledge not to raise National Insurance. He
When we are doing automatic adjustments . With that said i think it would be an improvement however we did it so if we to indexing when it came to when it came to individual parameters that would make sense as well. One thing i would notice we should be sure to index both the benefit side and the revenue side as in fact Peter Diamond suggests. To be critical of such an automatic mechanism would not simply be solvency. Our Current System would probably be made solvent. Congress will just get around to it later and focus changes on later generations. So the idea here is to spread the adjustment of properly and especially to share risk across generations but i also dont mean to suggest this is the way we will get to solvency from where we are today. Right now congress and the president do need to agree eventually a compromise. The point is we can build on these kinds of mechanisms and to compromise legislation so as to preserve the dealer has made an spread risks across generations rather
Now lets go over to westminster and join that bbc special on the budget with andrew neil. It is budget day, thejohnson government unveils its new plans, with special emphasis on its new voters in the midlands and the north. But for a rookie chancellor, only 28 days in the job, the north. But for a rookie chancellor, only 28 days in thejob, the biggest challenge is the growing Economic Impact of the coronavirus, and what he can do to vaccinate the economy from it. With me for this politics live budget special Political Editor laura kuennssberg, Business Editor simonjack, and economics editor faisal islam. It was meant to be the levelling up budget, to the regions and people that have not done well in the past decade but looks set to be the coronavirus budget. This morning he bank of england has already announced an emergency cut in Interest Rates. The bank of englands role is to help uk businesses and households manage through an economic shock that could prove large and sharp. Meanwhil