What does the budget mean for you?

Rosie Wright (0:01)

From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is The Story. I'm Rosie Wright.

John Healey (0:08)

Madame Deputy Speaker, it's an honour to stand here as the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deliver my first budget.

Rosie Wright (0:18)

Since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister, there's been huge anticipation for his Chancellor, John Healey, to show his hand.

John Healey (0:27)

This is a budget for the working people of Britain. For British businesses, big and small, delivered at a time when global uncertainties and pressures are swirling worldwide and hitting people here at home.

Rosie Wright (0:44)

The word beforehand was that Healey wanted a low-key, steady-as-she-goes budget, don't spook the markets, with a healthy dash of classic Burnham government messaging.

John Healey (0:55)

Giving Britain some breathing space on the cost of living and the cost of business.

Rosie Wright (1:00)

Amongst an almost overwhelming number of policy announcements, I will work with the sector to create a new starter iser.

John Healey (1:08)

I'm providing a 10 million pound alcohol duty relief. I will make self-employed fathers and partners eligible for paid parental leave.

Rosie Wright (1:16)

The standout and surprise announcement was the Chancellor's promise to help some households with their energy bills.

John Healey (1:23)

This winter, for 20 million households in council tax bands A to D, I'm announcing a 100 pounds energy payment for households.

Rosie Wright (1:37)

The speech, though, was light on detail on two of the biggest financial challenges for the government. How exactly they'll pay for a growing welfare bill, and will they spend more money on defence, something the opposition was quick to pick up on.

Kemi Badenoch (1:51)

What he's done is he's given himself a bit of breathing space, given himself a bit of breathing space until next year. Instead, what we have is a plan to have a plan. I bet Putin's really scared now.

Rosie Wright (2:07)

So did the budget deliver? And what does it mean for you?

The story today, The Budget Explained.

Lara Spirit (2:21)

Well, I spent much of this afternoon in the House of Commons chamber watching first PMQs, but then at 12.3 after primary discussions, immediately John Healey stood up and delivered his first budget.

Rosie Wright (2:33)

Lara Spirit is deputy political editor of The Sunday Times. As usual on Budget Day, she was in the halls of Westminster taking in all the action.

Lara Spirit (2:42)

Lobby journalists such as me were piling out to make sure that we could catch the briefing with the Treasury spokesperson, which is a very useful opportunity to ask some questions about the budget, and then catching up with what Kemi Baden-Oak has said, and then pouring out to try and get as much reaction from Labour MPs and others as possible before coming back here to talk to you, Rosie.

Rosie Wright (3:05)

So give us the backdrop for this one, both politically and financially for the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.

Lara Spirit (3:11)

Yes. So politically, this is the first major fiscal event of this government under Andy Burnham. So politically, very important. Also because John Healey, who is the Chancellor, formerly the Defence Secretary, has come in at a time where he has previously resigned from Kirstama's government over defence spending. He wants to see it higher. Big anticipation over whether or not he would be able to deliver that in his first budget. Now fiscally, the situation was extremely complicated and uncertain.

One of the things that John Healey stood up and said very early on was effectively, much of this has been driven by President Trump's war in Iran.

John Healey (3:46)

It's a war that has driven up costs, it's driven up costs on British families and on British businesses.

Lara Spirit (3:56)

And so within that context, you know, the government was losing billions and billions of pounds because of that uncertainty, because of rising borrowing costs, which meant that there was going to be a number of difficult decisions they were going to have to make in this budget.

Rosie Wright (4:10)

In a budget that was really pitched as being going to be one of hope and one that was going to alleviate pressures on the cost of living. So we'll look at some of the announcements in a moment or two. But before that, there's quite a lot of financial jargon that goes around budgets as well. Labour have talked a lot about its fiscal rules. Can you remind us what they are and why they're important?

Lara Spirit (4:28)

Yes. So there are two key fiscal rules which the government has committed to. So the first one, which is the stability rule, is that day-to-day taxes must fully cover day-to-day spending, basically. So you can't borrow money to pay for public services like schools or say, like the NHS. The second one is around debt, which is the national debt. And they measure that as a percentage of the whole economy must be falling by 2029 or 30