Budget special: energy, tax, childcare, pension and Help to Save

The Martin Lewis Podcast

BBC

Business

4.2 • 789 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Martin Lewis Podcast is here – and it’s a Budget 2023 special. Founder of Money Saving Expert, Martin Lewis reacts to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget. Free childcare of 30 hours a week for working parents in England is being expanded to cover one and two-year-olds, but will only be fully implemented by September 2025. Currently, working parents with three and four-year-olds are eligible for 30 hours of free childcare per week. The plans are part of a government drive to encourage more people back to work to boost economic growth.

The Chancellor is also scrapping the lifetime allowance on tax-free pension contributions, which is currently £1.07m, to stop people like doctors from retiring early.

Plus the government will extend support for energy bills at current levels for a further three months. Typical household energy bills in Britain had been due to rise to £3,000 a year from April, but instead will be kept at £2,500 until the end of June. But a £400 winter fuel payment will not be renewed, meaning households' costs will still rise in the short term. The government also promised to bring prepayment energy charges in line with those for direct debit customers. This should save households about £45 a year on their energy bills from July.

Elsewhere in the podcast, you Tell Us your top budgeting tips, how do you stick to a budget? Is it 'credit card in freezer' or spreadsheets? What's worked surprisingly well for you? Plus Nihal takes on Martin’s Money Mastermind, and this week is quizzed on Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

Producer: Isabelle Tudor

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, I'm Martin Lewis and this is the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast.
0:09.7	I do wonder what that's all going to be about.
0:11.9	Now, usually much of it comes from my BBC Radio 5 live show with Nahal Arthur Nyaka,
0:16.4	but there's bonus money-saving tips just for you lucky podcast listeners.
0:20.5	This week, the big subject, no surprise.
0:23.4	It's a budget special.
0:24.9	So let's not start talking about what we're going to talk about.
0:27.5	Let's just play the theme tune, PPI.
0:32.0	I got meals.
0:34.5	I got to pay.
0:36.3	Someone going to work for it. I guess about what we're going to be
0:52.6	Martin. Give me a B. Give me a U. Give me a B. B. Give me a
0:56.0	U. U. D. D. G. G. E. T. Let's go on with it. Yeah, we're going to be talking about the budget.
1:03.1	There was a lot in there. There was a lot that wasn't in there, too, that's important. I'm going to
1:06.8	start. We've got tax. There was no change on tax. No change on tax means fiscal drag. It actually
1:11.6	means you pay more. There was energy. The energy price guarantee has, as predicted, not going to rise by 20%, but also news for prepay and home heat networks.
1:22.9	Big announcements on childcare, too, announcements on pensions, which changes the way that pensions work,
1:28.4	a little bit of a mention on help to save.
1:30.3	So a lot going on in the budget.
1:31.9	But we're going to do a normal show as well.
1:33.7	We've got to tell us, and Nihal, I know you thought, budget day special.
	...

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