Rolling coverage of George Osborne, the chancellor, delivering his 2015 summer budget, and details of his £12bn expected welfare cuts, with the best reaction and analysis 11.35am BST This is from the Daily Mirror’s Jason Beattie.Cabinet "banged table" after Budget presentation this morning. Presumably with fists rather than heads #budget2015 11.34am BST This is what David Cameron’s spokeswoman said about the budget.This is a Budget that will put our country firmly on the path from a high tax, high welfare society to a lower tax, lower welfare society. It will provide a strong and solid foundation to secure a better future for people across the UK in the years ahead. 11.29am BST Harriet Harman, the acting Labour leader, will respond to the budget in the Commons, but the real interest will be in what the four leadership candidates have to say about George Osborne’s plans. Here are tweets from the four candidates setting out some pre-budget points.Tax credits, student grants, Sunday trading ... looks like #budget2015 will be long list of things people weren't told about before Election.@YvetteCooperMP on George Osborne's first Tory budget in @HuffPostUK: http://t.co/WPmba5DapM pic.twitter.com/xoyIpo4nW0If the Tories won't tackle low pay in today's #budget2015, I will. http://t.co/7M6H73ZcNz pic.twitter.com/dDOGjHYHE8"Does Labour stand up to the Tories' miserable and divisive austerity policies," #jeremy4leader pic.twitter.com/RD5tk9jMlU 11.28am BST The last Conservative-only budget was delivered by Ken Clarke in November 1996, and the Press Association has helpfully reminded us what else was happening at the time: 11.24am BST Campaigners are protesting outside Number 10 about the planned welfare cuts in the budget.Protests at gates of Downing Street over benefit cuts #Budget2015 pic.twitter.com/KZsqZWc9IK 11.20am BST George Osborne has left Number 11 for the Commons. 11.01am BST One of the photographers outside Number 10 this morning is clearly hoping for a job at the Football Association. He shouted ‘Morning girls’ at Nicky Morgan and Amber Rudd as they left cabinet. Here’s the ITV footage. They weren’t impressed. 10.57am BST Although we have had plenty of information about what will be in the budget already, George Osborne is expected to produce at least one “spectacular”.The Telegraph’s James Kirkup suggests it could be merging income tax with national insurance.Re speculation that the #summerbudget surprise is merger of income tax and NICs, John Redwood worth re-reading: http://t.co/FRYeTvcjgx 10.54am BST Anti-austerity campaigners are planning protests across the UK to coincide with the budget, as well as a series of strikes across the capital.Our report here: Related: 'Oxi to Osborne': UK campaigners take Greek inspiration in budget protests More security than normal on Whitehall for anticipated budget anti-welfare cuts protests: #SummerBudget pic.twitter.com/gmudS5B6HS 10.37am BST If you are looking for a guide as to how George Osborne can achieve welfare cuts of £12bn, this chapter, from the Institute of Fiscal Studies’ green budget earlier this year (pdf), is about as good as anything.Here are the key charts, showing how much various measures would save. They start on page 225. 10.27am BST George Osborne has been tweeting about the budget.Today I will present a Conservative Budget - a Budget that puts economic security first pic.twitter.com/yQ8kD8nmo9 10.08am BST You can read today’s Guardian budget coverage here.As for the rest of the papers, here are two comment articles worth reading.One of the differences between households and governments that economists always talk about is that the latter has the power of taxation. They can’t borrow “too much”, say the economists. Such an idea is nonsensical, they say, because governments, unlike households, can raise money by using their legal power to demand it from people.Yet this assumes that people will agree to let them use that power; it assumes that people will agree to pay the taxes. In America and in Greece, this idea has been tested and found wanting. Governments can much more easily gain consent to borrow money than they can gain consent to pay back the loans ...Importantly here, Mr Osborne is proving to be a good thief, adept at pinching bright ideas from others. Labour people, missing the point, squeal that he nicked the Northern Powerhouse theme from them. That comes after he stole the Lib Dem tax policy of jacking up the starting threshold for income tax, and then decorated it with the language of Blue Collar Conservatism, again a concept he’s appropriated from others. In his Budget today, it will be no surprise if he moves on the living wage and the working poor, a cause Boris Johnson has tried to make his own. Yet for all the rebranding and restyling, for all the intellectual heavy-lifting and light fingers, Mr Osborne is a contender because of his record, both political and economic. 10.00am BST According to the Daily Mail, George Osborne will limit child tax credits so that they are only paid for the first two children in any family. 9.53am BST Ever wonder what the Lib Dems are up to? This is from Phil Reilly, a Lib Dem official in the last government.1st budget day for 5 years I haven't spent trying in vain to get credit for Lib Dems for raising tax-free allowance. Might make a cup of tea 9.41am BST Today Tom Newton Dunn in the Sun says that George Osborne will cut most benefits for young people under the age of 21 in today’s budget. He also says that Osborne could cut tax credits for the under-25s. The story quotes a minister saying:This will be one of the boldest budgets in a very long time, in more than a decade certainly. It will fundamentally recast the relationship between the state, the individual and the employer. 9.40am BST Markets are edging higher ahead of the Budget statement, with the FTSE 100 up around 0.4%.But traders have more on their minds than Osborne’s speech, with an emergency summit on Greece called for Sunday, which could sign the country’s exit from the eurozone. China is also a worry, with its markets continuing to fall and regulators warning of “panic” among investors. 9.27am BST The cabinet meeting has broken up.The Chancellor must have plenty to talk about: the pre-Budget Cabinet briefing has broken up after an hour and 20 minutes. 9.15am BST Katie Allen explains the background to the budget in six graphs. 9.11am BST An artist, Kaya Mar, has been posing outside Number 10 with this picture of George Osborne. It is probably not one that the chancellor will be hanging in his living room. 9.07am BST Osborne and the Conservatives have benefitted from a recovery in the economy, with GDP growing for nine consecutive quarters. But the chancellor may have to announce a slightly worse outlook for the year, given signs of weakness in the first quarter. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which produces independent forecasts for the government, forecast in March that growth this year would be 2.5%, but this may now be scaled back to 2.4% or even 2.3% as it takes into account the effects of any spending cuts.If the OBR revises down the growth forecast for the next few years on the back of the spending cuts, or expresses doubt that the government can reach its deficit targets during this parliament, then we could see the pound struggle, particularly against the US dollar.[But] if Osborne announces any measures to boost the manufacturing sector then it may limit the pound’s downside, particularly after weak manufacturing production caused a sharp drop [against the dollar] on Tuesday. 9.04am BST The Treasury has tweeted a picture of the budget document being printed.The document's printed, the speech is prepped; only 14 hours until @George_Osborne presents his #SummerBudget https://t.co/QByVtiieop 8.56am BST According to Andrew Grice in the Independent, George Osborne will announce that he is cutting maintenance grants for poorer students in the budget today. Here’s an extract from his story.Maintenance grants for university students from low-income families will be scrapped and converted into loans in the Government’s next round of spending cuts ...At present, students in England and Wales from families with annual household incomes of £25,000 or less qualify for maintenance grants of £3,387 a year. 8.47am BST The cabinet normally meets on a Tuesday, but this week’s meeting was postponed until today, so that George Osborne could brief his colleagues on the budget measures. Here is some video of ministers arriving at Number 10 this morning.The Cabinet gathers to hear from George Osborne about his first all-Tory Budget: pic.twitter.com/0BQyawwe9P via @JoeChurcher 8.39am BST The Tory MP Chris Philp has tweeted a picture of the scene in the members’ lobby in the Commons earlier, where MPs were queuing up to reserve a seat for today’s budget.Waiting with other MPs to reserve seats in the Commons for today's budget pic.twitter.com/goWrdJYK5S 8.30am BST Any politician - or, indeed, anyone remotely interested in the craft of politics - dreams about the laws they would pass if given a totally free hand. Of course, politicians never get a totally free hand; even a prime minister with a large majority is constrained by internal party politics, Whitehall inertia, the judiciary, and a host of other factors. But for George Osborne, the chancellor, today will probably be as close as he will ever get to that moment of maximum elbow room. This is his seventh budget, but his first without Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander vetoing some of his ideas. The Conservative majority is small, but Tory MPs are buoyed by their surprise election victory and Osborne will never have a better chance to get difficult measures through the Commons. As a result, we’ve been told that this will be a very big budget indeed - one that will define the government for the next five years.A budget statement lasts about an hour, but these days budgets have become like Indian weddings or music festivals - a week-long news event, with the first stories coming out well in advance. As a result we have already had quite a lot of detail about what is coming. (Whether these stories are “leaks”, or proper Treasury announcements, is sometimes a moot point - since the Lib Dems left government, the supply of proper budget leaks has somewhat dried up.) And new information emerged last night, as Patrick Wintour has reported in the Guardian’s budget story. Here’s how it starts.George Osborne will use the first Conservative budget in 18 years to slash billions from in-work tax credits and housing benefit, although the chancellor is likely to slow the pace of an expected £12bn cuts to the welfare bill.An initial cut of £8bn in welfare over two years was being predicted on Tuesday night, closer to the pace of welfare cuts agreed under the previous coalition government and intended to protect Osborne from criticism he is likely to face from Labour and charities. Continue reading...
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