Tories add spending sparkle but Labour remains in pole

Although Rishi Sunak’s ministers have made a virtue out of being “boring” after the turbulence of the Johnson and Truss periods, yesterday’s Budget was more exciting than expected. Jeremy Hunt had done a good job of lowering expectations, enabling a fairly run-of-the mill Budget to look more sparkly on the day than it should have done.

- ANDREW GRICE

The chancellor began with good news: the UK will now escape recession this year, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) fiscal watchdog - more optimistic than the Bank of England, but allowing Hunt to claim the economy is "proving the doubters wrong". Inflation will fall from 10.7 per cent to 2.9 per cent - more good news.

But the small print was less optimistic: the UK is still forecast to have the lowest growth in the G7 this year, and the OBR has reduced its growth forecast for the final three years of the five-year planning period since last November.

Hunt's good news rabbit, which escaped early last night - more help for working parents with childcare costs - is a big and welcome intervention. "Free" 30 hours for three and four-year-olds will be extended for children at nine months. Worth £6,500 a year for a typical family, it will be phased in by 2025 and will cost £5bn a year.

The announcement signals that we are now truly into the general election run-up. The Tories will ruthlessly steal Labour's best clothes when they need to; a childcare revolution was going to be Keir Starmer's big election offer. He will now have to go further to trump the Tories on this crucial issue. But Hunt also filched Labour's plan for all schools to offer "wraparound" 8am6pm childcare provision, which the Tories will bring in by 2026.