Budget 2018 - LIVE: Hammond announces end to PFI and ploughs extra £1bn into troubled universal credit
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Your support makes all the difference.Philip Hammond has reiterated Theresa May's claim that the era of austerity is "finally coming to an end" in his last pre-Brexit Budget.
The chancellor unveiled a new "UK digital services tax" aimed at tech giants, which are profitable and generate at least £500m a year in global revenues.
Promising a Budget for "Britain's future", Mr Hammond also earmarked an extra £1bn for the Ministry of Defence and set out the government's plan for the NHS, including £2bn per year for mental health services.
In addition, he said the government would never sign another private finance initiative (PFI) deal, long criticised for locking the taxpayer into hugely expensive infrastructure contracts that enrich private firms.
He also promised an additional £1bn for the implementation of universal credit, which also faces widespread criticism for pushing vulnerable people into homelessness and food bank dependency.
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Chancellor finally makes it to universal credit, the government's flagship welfare reform.
He says he can provide £1bn over five years to help people move over to UC - which rolls six working age benefits into one. Hammond says he was increasing work allowances in UC by £1,000 a year at a cost of £1.7 billion annually, helping 2.4 million working families with children and people with disabilities by £630 per year.
He says UC is 'here to stay' and he is putting in the money to make it work.
Hammondsays he will not be breaking his manifesto commitments - nor increasing people's tax bills. He says the improvement made in the public finances means he does not need to do so.
He says the income tax-free personal allowance will rise to £12,500 and higher rate threshold to £50,000 from April 2019, and both to be indexed to inflation from 2021/22.
It's a tax cut for 32 million people, he says, and comes a year earlier than the Tory manifesto committed to.
It puts £130 a year in the pocket of a typical basic rate taxpayer meaning 1.7m have been out of tax altogether and nearly 1m out of higher rate tax since 2015.
And that's it from the chancellor. He spoke for an hour and 12 minutes.
Moment of excitement in the Commons as protesters unfurl a banner at the end of the Budget statement. Labour and SNP MPs were applauding them.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says this is a 'broken promises Budget' as he begins his official response to the chancellor.
It won't undo the damage done by 8 years of austerity nor will it help to rebuild Britain, he says.
Corbyn says it is not a strong economy but a weak one, and the uncertainty caused by the government's 'shambolic handling of Brexit' has only made it worse.
He said: "What we've heard today are half measures and quick fixes while austerity grinds on.
"And far from people's hard work and sacrifices having paid off, as the chancellor claims, this government has frittered it away in ideological tax cuts to the richest in our society."
Corbyn says huge parts of the deficit have been 'palmed off on others', forced it onto struggling councils and hospital trusts.
He said Labour believes spending on public services is a good thing - as he hits back at the Chancellor's claims of the previous Labour government's irresponsibility.
As Corbyn sets out his response, journalists are getting stuck into the detail of the Budget.
Responding to the Budget is a tricky job for the opposition leader, as you have no prior sight of the speech and no one is really listening anyway. All the journalists dash off for a briefing with the Treasury and to dig into the detail from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
Corbyn is doing a decent job knocking the proposals down though. He works methodically through the challenges facing different public services and the promise of ending austerity is a decent attack for Labour - who can easily point out how far from true that is.
'This government is harsh on the weak and feeble with the strong,' he says.
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