The Budget verdict: Pensions, childcare, energy bills and dodging recession

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

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Summary

Jeremy Hunt had a spring in his step this week as he delivered his Budget.

It was a considerably different air to the gloomy warning of trouble ahead in his November Autumn Statement.

The headline act was a major shake-up of pension saving rules, removing restrictions that limit the amount that can go in without tax penalties.

The lifetime allowance was abolished rather than raised, the annual allowance got a big bump, and rules to stop pension recycling were eased.

Was this a bung for the rich shovelling cash into their pension - and doctors - or a move that will help many more young professional savers aspiring to a decent retirement, who may not realise the lifetime limit could be hit?

On this week's podcast, Georgie Frost, Helen Crane and Simon Lambert delve into the Budget and joining them to explain the pensions element is a special guest, This is Money's retirement columnist and ex-pensions minister Steve Webb.

Also in the Budget was news on the economy, a ray of hope on energy bills, and a big expansion of free childcare... but it won't come in for some time.

The team look at all those elements and more.

And finally, as the Budget claimed the headlines something else was rumbling on: a mini-banking crisis sparked by the Sillicon Valley Bank collapse. What is going on there and should we be worried?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to This is Money Budget Special. I'm Georgie Frost and joining me and editor Simon Lambert today is Deputy Editor Helen Crane with a cameo from pensions guru, Steve Webb.
0:12.3	And coming up, from a pension shake-up to childcare costs, freezing fuel duty and energy prices, how will the budget affect you?
0:19.7	Plus inflation to plummet and no recession this
0:22.2	year. Does this mean things are looking up at last and have we reached the end of the interest rate
0:27.1	hikes? Plus are we heading for a 2008 scale financial crisis? Don't be getting it up to day with
0:32.8	all the latest breaking money news. Just go to this ismoney.co.com.uk or download the app. Don't forget,
0:39.3	you can stay on top of what's going on in the markets by tuning in to the Digest and Invest
0:42.7	podcast by Itaro. Go to your regular podcast platform and listen on the go. Digest and
0:47.0	invest by Itoro, the podcast for those interested in trading and investing.
0:51.0	But first, so Simon, Helen, wasn't much in Jeremy Hunt's budget speech.
0:56.1	I have to say in terms of personal finance news that we didn't actually know beforehand,
1:00.6	childcare, pensions, allowances, energy bill, help. We did get a small pensions bunny out of the cap,
1:06.2	I guess you can say, which will get to shortly. But perhaps the bigger news is around the financial forecast.
1:12.8	So no recession this year, inflation to fall to 2.9% by the end of the year. All good news, right?
1:20.4	Well, it would be except for the fact the OBR is still warning that we face still the worst
1:25.0	decline in living standards since records began in the 1950s and the highest
1:28.9	tax burden since World War II. Marvelous. Simon, firstly, what did the Chancellor set out to
1:36.8	deliver in this speech, this budget, and did he succeed? Seemingly, the exact opposite of what he set out to deliver in November,
1:47.2	when his tactic was to be the headmaster who had taken control of the unruly school and was there
1:54.0	to scare the bejesus out of us and issue some dire, eawr style predictions about how bad everything was going to get and therefore
2:03.5	justify all of the tactics that he was putting in place. This week, it's quite different. It was
2:11.3	positively tiggerish, bouncing around the place with his little jokes and laughs and ha ha ha. We've avoided recession.
	...

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