In his last Budget statement before a general election, he said: "Because we have turned the corner on inflation we will soon turn the corner on growth."
There were no big surprises after the leaked 2p cut in National Insurance for both employed and self-employed workers, costing £10bn.
Among a clutch of small spending commitments, he said £242m of levelling up funding would be channelled into supporting the building of 8,000 homes at Barking Riverside and Canary Wharf in east London.
This levelling-up funding will be divided into £118m for Canary Wharf to accelerate a life sciences hub, commercial and retail floor space, a healthcare diagnostic facility and up to 750 homes.
A further £124m will go to Barking Riverside to unlock 7,200 homes.
The Chancellor also earmarked £100m of funding for culture projects – subject to business cases approval – that will be allocated to projects like the British Library North in Leeds, National Railway Museum in York, and National Museums Liverpool.
He pledged £400m in fresh investments to extend the 10-year Long-Term Plan for Towns to 20 more places.
| Funding for 20 towns | ||
|---|---|---|
| Royal Sutton Coldfield | Eastbourne | Arbroath |
| Darlington | Harlow | Peterhead |
| Runcorn | Newton-leWillows | Kirkwall |
| Canvey Island | Rawtenstall | Rhyl |
| Thetford | Wisbech | Derry/Londonderry |
| King's Lynn | Carlton (Gedling) | Coleraine |
| Ramsgate | Bedworth | |
There was also £24m for two shovel-ready regeneration projects in Bradford and Ashfield.
The Chancellor also announced that the Government had struck a £160m deal with Hitachi to buy the Wylfa nuclear site in Wales and Oldbury near Bristol in readiness to build the next major large-scale nuclear power station after Sizewell C.
The potential deal comes five years after the Japanese giant abandoned plans for a nuclear plant in Britain
He said that Great British Nuclear would today invite six companies to submit their initial tender responses by June for the next-generation small modular nuclear reactors.
The Chancellor held out the promised a major tax break to plant hire companies in the form of full expensing of leased assets at some point when fiscal conditions allow.
Budget key points
- OBR says inflation to fall below 2% in next few months
- OBR predicts 0.8% growth this year, 1.9% next year
- Confirmed employee National Insurance rate will fall from 10% to 8%. Self-employed NI tax cut from 8% to 6%
- Higher rate of property capital gains tax reduced from 28% to 24%.
- VAT threshold raised from £85k to £90k
- Fuel duty will remain at its current rate and be frozen for the next 12 months
- £100m extra levelling up funding for community cultural projects
- East-West Rail works from Bletchley to Bedford accelerated
- Green Industries Growth Accelerator given extra £120m to build supply chains for offshore wind and carbon capture and storage.
- Non-dom tax status abolished
- Stamp duty relief for purchasers of more than one dwelling in a single transaction scrapped
- Tax relief for holiday lets scrapped
- Public sector productivity plan for £20bn of future savings
- North East Devolution deal
Source; Construction Enquirer