UK Budget announcement today: Jeremy Hunt to announce childcare boost in spring speech

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is expected to announce a £4 billion extension of free childcare for one- and two-year-olds in England.

The scheme will provide an extra 30 hours a week to parents of one- and two-year-olds, The guardian mentionted.

It will also increase funding by £288m by 2024-25 for the existing free childcare scheme for three-year-olds.

Mr Hunt will scrap a planned £500 rise in average energy bills which was due to come into effect next month, in a move which would have seen bills for the average household stay at around £2,500, rather than rising to £3,000 £ as it was before. was announced.

The Treasury has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks to scrap the hike, which was due to take effect on April 1.

Drinkers are bracing for a gut-wrenching Budget expected to include a double alcohol tax raid that could see the cost of a bottle of wine rise by around 45p.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is set to raise alcohol duty in line with inflation – currently at a staggering 10.1%.

And a separate tax targeting higher-strength drinks is set to come into effect despite the biggest cost-of-living pressure in a generation.

Hundreds of thousands of workers from various unions will strike on Wednesday in what threatens to be the biggest day of industrial action since the current wave of unrest began last year.

These are the sectors affected by the Budget Day strikes.

Jeremy Hunt will unveil his first spring budget since becoming chancellor today, aiming to boost growth amid the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Mr Hunt is due to deliver his Budget in the House of Commons at 12.30pm, after Prime Minister’s Questions.

The chancellor is expected to unveil 12 zones clustered around universities – radically scaling back a plan introduced by former prime minister Liz Truss that pitted hundreds of councils against each other.

The energy price guarantee will be extended for another three months from April to June at its current level, capping average annual household bills at £2,500, the Treasury confirmed.

The three-month extension of the energy price guarantee (EPG) to its current level of £2,500 will save a typical household around £160, the government has said.

Chief Minister Rishi Sunak said: “We know people are worried about their bills going up in April, so to put people’s mind at ease we are keeping the energy price guarantee at the current level until the summer, when gas prices are expected to decrease. .

“Continuing to keep energy bills down is part of our plan to help working families with the cost of living and halve inflation this year.”

The EPG was due to rise to £3,000 in April, but falling energy prices mean the current level can be extended to ‘bridge the gap’ until costs fall below the cap.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who included the measure in his Budget presented today, said: “High energy bills are one of the biggest concerns for families, which is why we are keeping the energy price guarantee at its current level.

“With energy bills set to fall from July onwards, this temporary change will bridge the gap and reduce the pressure on families, while also helping to reduce inflation.”

With the Budget now just hours away, this report from Patrick Daly explains what you can expect to hear:

Up to £8.6m of funding for Edinburgh’s festivals is expected to be announced in Wednesday’s Budget, reports Lucinda Cameron.

Part of the funding could go towards creating a permanent home for the Fringe festival, which attracts thousands of artists to the Scottish capital every summer.

Carers’ funding for respite holidays should be doubled, a coalition representing older people has urged Jeremy Hunt as they named him “health and care chancellor”.

The Care and Support Alliance (CSA) said it was “begging” Mr Hunt to use his Budget today to announce more investment in social care, including doubling government funding for carers’ breaks.

Age UK, which is a member of the CSA, said it had surveyed more than 1,600 carers aged 60 and over and found that 35 per cent felt overwhelmed by the care and support they provide, while 61 per cent sometimes worry or always about whether they could continue to care or provide support.

In an editorial, The independent said Jeremy Hunt and his colleagues “must end the misuse of apprenticeship levy funds as revealed by The independenthis research.

It states: “Although not at the top of the chancellor’s list of priorities, the sums involved in these frauds are significant – at least £1bn. This is taxpayers’ money that has been used over the past five years to fund 55,000 already high-income executives to attend courses equivalent to a master’s degree but labeled, absurdly, as “apprenticeships”.

“Indeed, around £100m has been allocated to MBA funding, much of it for executives earning more than £100,000 a year – despite the government’s attempt to scrap it two years ago. The rise in ‘apprenticeships’ for management candidates appears to be at the cost of young people, with 100,000 fewer under-25s starting apprenticeships than before the levy was introduced six years ago.

“It is outrageous that scarce resources should have been diverted in this way: if those involved had directed their ingenuity to growing their businesses and taking on real apprentices, rather than exploring loopholes in a scheme that was never intended to subsidize. Skills and Apprenticeships Secretary Robert Halfon has pledged to crack down on the MBA scandal and it can’t come soon enough.”