My 5 key budget highlights for the North East

Action on fuel, no income tax up to 10k, corporation tax coming down, a new Employment Allowance which will give £2,000 to businesses, and action to help pubs and brewers
Help for North East Families: Labour’s planned fuel duty rise is cancelled,saving 1.2 million motorists in the North East over £170 every year. I have long championed lower fuel duty and had called on the Chancellor to deliver a freeze. Because of the action we have taken, pump prices will now be 13 pence per litre lower than if Labour were in power. For a Vauxhall Astra that is £7 less every time families fill up the tank – or £9 less for a Mondeo. A van driver will save £340 per year and a haulier will save £5,200 per year.
Fuel duty will now have been frozen for nearly three and half years - the longest freeze in duty for over 20 years.
The limit at which people start paying tax to be raised to £10,000 in 2014 - a year earlier than planned
Help for North East Businesses:  A new Employment Allowance will take £2,000 off the National Insurance bill of every employer – open to businesses, charities and community amateur sports clubs. This great news for local small businesses. It will help 25,000 employers in the North East
Employers will be able to hire one extra person on £22,400 a year, or four people working full time on the minimum wage, without paying any National Insurance.

Plus A further corporation tax cut to 20 per cent in April 2015 will see the UK having the lowest corporation tax rate in the G20, which sends a clear signal that Britain is open for business.
This really is fantastic news for businesses in the North East. The Employment Allowance will make it easier and cheaper for firms to hire people – an employer could hire four local people in Hexham for example, working full time on the minimum wage, without paying any National Insurance to the Goverment.
These and the other business measures in the Budget are exactly what local businesses need to hire, to expand and to grow.

Help for North East Pubs: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has scrapped Labour’s plans to increase beer duty in today’s Budget, and instead cut it by a penny, meaning beer will be 1p per pint cheaper after Sunday night – 4p per pint cheaper than it would have been under Labour. Labour increased beer duty by 60 per cent and left our pubs fighting for survival. It is a real boost for local pubs that we have not only scrapped Labour’s planned increase – we’ve actually cut it.
It’s great for beer-drinkers, it’s great for breweries, and it’s great for the North East’s thousands of pubs.
I have received warm congratulations from my pubs / brewers and will defintely be celebrating with a pint!

Full report here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21851965