Let's hope Mr Hunt has 'one more thing' up his sleeve before the election

JEREMY Hunt did not do enough in this Budget to convince voters another term of Tory government will see Britain become a country of low taxes and high rewards for endeavour.

- Patrick O'Flynn

Let us be clear: if Conservative MPs and disenchanted former Conservative voters were hoping for a game-changer Budget, then this certainly wasn't it.

A 20-point poll deficit is unlikely to suffer much of a dent as a result of anything Hunt announced yesterday.

His flagship measure, an additional 2 per cent cut in employee and self-employed national insurance rates, is certainly welcome insofar as it goes.

But it barely compensates workers for the continued punishing freezing of income tax thresholds. It is also of no benefit to millions of retired people, who were hoping for an income tax cut that would reduce the share of their occupational pensions being confiscated by the tax man.

No such luck.

A secondary measure to raise the threshold at which child benefit starts to be withdrawn from £50,000 to £60,000, and to taper the clawback across £20,000 of income rather than £10,000, will help many hard-working and deserving families.

Hunt deserves credit for listening to critics who had pointed out that the previous arrangement was destroying the incentives and morale of many ambitious people by leaving them facing sky-high marginal tax rates.