Rishi Sunak has delivered his mini-Budget to give people a helping hand with their finances as inflation hits a 30-year high.
The chancellor announced a 5p fuel duty cut and a rise in the National Insurance threshold by £3,000. He also announced that the OBR expects inflation to rise further this year, to 7.4%.
The rate of Consumer Price Index inflation jumped to 6.2 per cent in February, from 5.5 per cent in January, the ONS said on Wednesday morning.
People will have an extra £3,000 that they will not pay national insurance on, under the “largest ever” tax cut announced by Mr Sunak.
He said the government’s cut to fuel duty would represent the “biggest cut to fuel duty rates ever”. Labour criticised Mr Sunak for “not understanding the scale of the challenge.”
The Office for Budget Responsibility revealed that the rise in inflation to a predicted 40-year high this year would trigger “the biggest fall in living standards in any single financial year since ONS records began in 1956-7”.
