Budget 2023 – live updates: Pension lifetime allowance and childcare changes at a glance

From the economy to alcohol and tobacco, and from tax and benefits changes to defence, here are the key points Jeremy Hunt announced:

Jeremy Hunt faces a backbench Tory rebellion over the rise in corporation tax in the Budget. Influential MPs on the right have warned that raising the rate from 19 to 25 per cent would “hammer” businesses and curb growth:

Conservationists say the budget did not “come close to delivering on the UK’s legally binding climate and nature goals”.

“We need to see policies that drive down emissions, restore nature and provide meaningful support for the public in the cost-of-living crisis,” said Kate Norgrove, WWF’s executive director of advocacy and campaigns.

“At every Budget we need to see the Government publish a net-zero tracker, showing whether public spending is in line with their legal climate and nature commitments.

“Until the government take the meaningful steps to rewire our economy to deliver on climate and nature action, we will continue to see budgets that fail to meet the challenge to save our wild isles.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer described the generous tax-free pensions allowances in the Budget as a “permanent tax cut” for the wealthy.

Sir Keir told the Commons: “We needed a fix for doctors, but the announcement today is a huge giveaway to some of the very wealthiest.

“The only permanent tax cut in the Budget is for the richest 1%. How can that possibly be a priority for this Government?

“The truth is our labour market is the cast-iron example of an economy with weak foundations. Our crisis in participation simply hasn’t happened elsewhere, not to this extent; it is a feature of Tory Britain and global excuses simply won’t wash.”

Nuclear energy is to be reclassified as “environmentally sustainable” to give it the same access to investment incentives as renewables, the Chancellor has said.

In his spring Budget, Jeremy Hunt said the Government will launch a Great British Nuclear scheme to “bring down costs” and “provide opportunities” in the supply chain with a view to nuclear power providing a quarter of the UK’s electricity generation by 2050.

He also launched a competition for small modular reactors (SMRs), which will be funded if the technology is proven to be viable.

Mr Hunt also said that he wanted to invest up to £20bn to help develop carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) technologies, designed to suck up carbon emissions from major polluting industries.

However, none of the new money for CCUS that Mr Hunt has promised will come before the next election.

The Chancellor set out what he called the four Es - enterprise, education, employment and everywhere - as priorities.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP, said he had “utterly failed” to mention a fifth - environment.

She said: “Just when we needed a solar rooftop revolution, an unblocking and upscaling of renewables, a major street-by-street mass insulation programme, and a commitment to invest in our totally neglected, sewage-filled rivers and seas, we get too slow, too expensive and too dangerous nuclear white elephants.”

The cancellation of the energy price hike announced in the Budget does not apply to those on a fixed-term energy deal, so some customers will be locked in at higher prices than the current cap.

Similarly, some standard variable green energy tariffs have been exempted from the cap by Ofgem.

But the vast majority of customers are eligible, including those on pre-payment meters:

The OBR has predicted that house prices will fall by 10 per cent from their high in the last three months of 2022 – a 1 per cent point larger fall than in the November forecast.

And the number of property transactions is expected to drop by 20 per cent from its peak at the end of last year.

The OBR said low consumer confidence, the squeeze on real incomes and the expectation of mortgage rate rises to come are set to lead to house prices continuing to fall.

Gross domestic product (GDP) is forecast to start growing next year but underlying debt is also forecast to rise by comparison for up to four years.

It is predicted to be 92.4% of GDP next year, 93.7% in 2024-25; 94.6% in 2025-26, and 94.8% in 2026-27, before falling to 94.6% in 2027-28.

The deficit falls from 5.1% of GDP in 2023-24, to 3.2% in 2024-25, 2.8% in 2025-26, 2.2% in 2026-27 and 1.7% in 2027-28.

The UK economy is set to avoid a recession but people are still expected to face the biggest fall in living standards on record, according to the fiscal watchdog.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projected that the economy would shrink by less than expected and inflation will fall more sharply than previous forecasts, in an improved economic outlook in the near term.

Declining wholesale energy prices and cooling global inflation have improved the position of the Treasury compared with the last budget statement in November.

Previously, the OBR said the UK was due to enter a recession in 2022 and shrink by 1.4% in 2023.

However, the fresh projections show that the economy is set to avoid a technical recession - which means two consecutive quarters of decline - and shrink by 0.2% this year as whole.

The chancellor announced the system used to assess eligibility for sickness benefits will be scrapped, while parents on universal credit will be paid childcare support upfront, and there will be reforms to jobseekers on universal credit: