Winners and losers in Chancellor's 2013 budget

An extra £176million will be available to the Scottish Government because of decisions made in the Chancellor's Budget, according to the UK Government.

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Chancellor George Osborne unveils 2013 budget
Chancellor George Osborne unveils 2013 budget

The additional spending power is the result of a £279m increase in capital spending and a £103m reduction in the day-to-day resource budget.

Michael Moore, the Scottish Secretary in the UK Government, said: "Today's Budget shows the coalition Government is building a stronger economy and fairer society to equip Scotland and the UK to succeed in the global race.

"We face many economic challenges but this Government has shown we can deliver, with one million private sector jobs and increasing personal tax allowances to £10,000, taking 224,000 people in Scotland out of tax altogether.

"We are supporting families, individuals, both small and large businesses, and investing in the future with this Budget.

"It is good news for Scotland and will help us build on the positive changes we are making to rebalance our economy."

George Osborne unveiled a range of Budget measures that saw him cut a variety of taxes and scrap planned increases in petrol and tax duties.

Mr Osborne announced measures to help individuals and businesses, that included:

- Scrapping September's planned fuel duty rise.

- Scrapping the planned 3p rise in beer duty tax, replacing it by a 1p cut in duty on a pint of beer. However, planned rises for all other alcohol duties were maintained.

- An increase in personal allowance is being brought forward to 2014, meaning people will not pay income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings.

Raising the income tax threshold will mean £700 less being paid by working families, said Mr Osborne.

He also announced a new employment allowance, which will take the first £2000 off employer National Insurance bills for every company in the country – a move he described as "taking tax off jobs".

But the bad news at the beginning of his speech, which lasted for 55 minutes.

He slashed the official growth forecast in half today as he admitted the recovery was taking "longer than anyone hoped".

He described today's package as a "Budget for people who aspire to work hard and get on".

But he added: "Today, I'm going to level with people about the difficult economic circumstances we still face and the hard decisions required to deal with them."

Mr Osborne delivered his Budget to a rowdy House of Commons, in which the Deputy Speaker was forced to intervene repeatedly.

The sluggish growth figures mean borrowing will be higher than expected – hitting £114billion this year, compared to a previous forecast of £108bn.

Next year borrowing will be £108bn as against the £99bn previously predicted, before dropping to £42bn in 2017-18, compared to £31bn forecast in the Autumn Statement.

But the Chancellor predicted the deficit would continue to come down thanks to the "many tough decisions" taken by the Government.

He said the deficit had fallen from 11.2% of GDP in 2009-10, to a forecast of 7.4% this year – a fall of a third.

And he predicted it would fall further to 6.8% next year, 5.9% in 2014-15, 5% in 2015-16 and 3.4% the following year – reaching 2.2% by 2017-18.

He confirmed the remit of the Bank Of England's Monetary Policy Committee would be updated to allow it to use "unconventional monetary instruments" to support the economy while keeping inflation stable.

He confirmed Whitehall budgets would be cut by 1% after an £11bn underspend this year, but schools and health budgets would not be affected.

Money saved will be pumped into infrastructure projects, he said.

And he said the public sector pay cap of 1% would be extended by one year in 2015/16 and there would be limits on "progression" pay rises in the sector.

But the Chancellor said military personnel would receive their full recommended increase in May.

On energy, the Chancellor announced a boost for the controversial shale gas industry, which collects gas using a process known as fracking.

Mr Osborne said the "generous new tax regime" would include a shale gas field allowance.

Declaring "Britain is open for business", the Chancellor announced a series of measures designed to boost commerce, including a 1% cut in corporation tax to 20% in April 2015.

And he confirmed more measures aimed at curbing tax dodging, claiming it was "one of the largest ever packages of tax avoidance and evasion measures presented at a Budget".

Labour leader Ed Miliband said: "This is the Chancellor's fourth Budget but one thing unites them all - every Budget, he comes to this House and things are worse not better for this country."

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