The Budget offered relief in one direction while taking money away in another, leaving savers and buy-to-let landlords among those bearing the cost.

John Healey used his first Budget to set out targeted cost-of-living support, while cautioning that households and businesses face a continuing “global economic storm”.

Against a backdrop of borrowing costs at their highest level in three decades and rising fuel and energy bills, Healey promised to give families and companies some much-needed “breathing space”.

The package includes help with household energy costs, although the £100 payment will be limited to properties in council tax bands A to D.

The measures were presented as a restrained “do no harm” Budget, combining modest tax increases with cost-of-living assistance funded partly by higher bank taxes. Major decisions on defence, benefits and social care, however, have been pushed back.

Savers are unlikely to accept that description. The Chancellor has delivered another blow to returns on savings, imposing a further tax increase on top of a rise announced by Rachel Reeves that has yet to take effect.

Tax on interest earned from savings will rise from the existing rates of 20 per cent, 40 per cent and 45 per cent to 24 per cent, 44 per cent and 49 per cent respectively.

The Office for Budget Responsibility also published its latest forecasts, highlighting the difficult economic conditions confronting the Chancellor.

Key stories from the Budget 2026

> Budget income tax raid targets savers and landlords as Healey adds another 2% to Reeves’ planned increase

> Will the First Home scheme help you buy sooner? Here is everything you need to know

> New Budget rules spare the poorest pensioners from income tax, but others could face a 53% hit

> How to find your council tax band and check whether you qualify for Labour’s £100 energy payment

> Frozen income tax thresholds: use our salary calculator to see how much they could cost you

> Investing starter Isa planned as ministers unveil Budget proposals to encourage savers to invest

> Chancellor abandons Rachel Reeves’ cash Isa tax raid and leaves the £20,000 savings limit unchanged

> Standing charges on gas bills to be scrapped: what does the change mean for your energy costs?

> Plan to address rising public EV charging costs leaves a £1,000-a-year divide between drivers with and without driveways

> Side hustle boost for Vinted and eBay sellers as tax-free trading allowance triples to £3,000

> M+: Healey has delivered another attack on prudent savers, and I fear it may be only the beginning, writes JEFF PRESTRIDGE

Budget built on ‘fiscal discipline’ 

The Chancellor opened his Budget by saying it is for the ‘working people of Britain, for British businesses, big and small’. 

He said: ‘First, by giving Britain some breathing space on the cost of living and the cost of business,

‘Second, backing the enterprise of British business to unleash innovation and growth in every postcode

‘And third, by tackling the big challenges on energy, on national security, on public service transformation and on housing.’

Borrowing is set to fall to 4.2 per cent this year, reducing to 1.8 per cent in 2030-31, while UK debt as a percentage of GDP is up to 83.2 per cent this year and 83.8 per cent next year, before dipping to 81.7 per cent in 2031-32, the Chancellor said. 

The OBR forecasts the Government will spend £14billion more on debt interest this year as Britain battles ‘global economic storms’. 

Meanwhile, GDP is expected to grow 1.2 per cent this year before falling back to 1 per cent next year, and rising to 1.6 per cent in 2028. 

Energy bills 

Healey has already announced he will axe standing charges on gas bills, in a move that will benefit millions of households – but experts warn those in larger homes could be worse off. 

The Treasury said Healey will today ask the energy regulator Ofgem to remove standing charges ‘in 2027 or as soon as possible after’. He said he will set out similar reforms for electricity bills. 

‘From this point, our priority is first and foremost cheaper energy, with clean power key to achieving this,’ he said in his statement. 

He will extend the VAT cut on domestic energy bills through the winter and pledged to take 25 per cent off business energy bills from April. 

And finally, households in council tax bands A to D will receive a £100 energy payment paid directly into their accounts. 

> What will changes to standing charges mean for your energy bill?  

Low-income pensioners avoid income tax 

The Chancellor has confirmed pensioners whose sole income is the state pension will not pay income tax. 

Those relying on just the state pension had been set to pay income tax on it for the first time from next April, as the annual amount would breach the income tax threshold of £12,570.

Fuel duty 

The 5p fuel duty cut will be extended to July 2027, the Chancellor confirmed. 

Duty paid on motor fuels has been frozen since 2011, except for the temporary cut which was introduced in 2022 when oil prices spiked after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Savers and landlords face higher tax rates 

From April 2027, savers and landlords who are basic rate taxpayers will pay 24 per cent income tax on interest and rents, up from 20 per cent today. 

It follows the two percentage point hike imposed by former Chancellor Rachel Reeves in last year’s Budget. 

> Savers and landlords hammered with income tax raid in Budget as Healey ratchets up Reeves’ hike 

Business rates relief 

John Healey said he will make it so that 70,000 more small businesses do not have to pay any business rates.

He will increase the threshold for small business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses from £12,000 to £18,000. He said this would be welcome news for firms such as bakeries and hair salons, which ‘make the places we live and work, the places we love.’

For larger retail and hospitality firms, he announced a freeze on rates in real terms, ‘so that none face an above-inflation rise for two years.’ Vape shops and adult gaming centres will be exempt. 

And Healey confirmed all business rates will be retained locally by the end of the decade, with 20 per cent of revenue going to mayors from next year. 

Gambling tax hikes 

Healey said he would fund tax breaks for the High Street by hiking gambling taxes, including increasing machine games duty from 20 per cent to 25 per cent for higher stakes machines. But he said he would protect pubs and seaside arcades from the increases.

Minimum wage rise 

The national minimum wage and national living wage will increase by 3.9 per cent for 2.3 million workers, Healey confirmed. 

Cash Isa cut reversed

Healey has abandoned his predecessor Rachel Reeves’ plans to cut the cash Isa allowance from £20,000 to £12,000, and confirmed he will work with the sector to create a new ‘starter Isa‘ to reward first-time investors. 

Tax on banks 

John Healey has confirmed a temporary rise in the bank surcharge, currently levied at 3 per cent on top of the 25 per cent corporation tax rate, by an extra 3 percentage points to 6 per cent to help fund energy support. 

‘Banks will pay an extra 3 per cent on the Bank Surcharge, this will be time limited, to pay for immediate support on energy bills. Starting in January, ending 15 months later,’ he said.

‘I’ve made my choice at this Budget: asking a bit more of our banks to support ordinary people, raising taxes on gambling to support good growth on every high street.’ 

> Bank shares jump after Budget tax raid ‘not as bad as feared’ 

Help for entrepreneurs 

Healey has pledged more support for entrepreneurs with a ‘founders’ relief’, a 10 per cent rate on lifetime gains up to £10million for the most successful founders.

The Chancellor has introduced a higher trading allowance, meaning people can earn £3,000 without paying any tax, from £1,000 previously.

He will also launch a new young entrepreneurs allowance, which will cover a year of living costs for founders.

Defence 

Healey, who resigned as defence secretary under Sir Keir Starmer, said he would fill a £4.7billion gap in the Defence Investment Plan. 

‘In today’s budget, I am fully funding the Defence Investment Plan, including through capital reprioritisation across Whitehall.’

‘This honours the commitment made both by me – and by the prime minister’.

He said he is ‘getting work under way’ to reach spending of 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030 and will set out how he will hit that target at next year’s spending review. 

Britain will also commit £10 billion of additional economic and military support to Ukraine, and half a billion in urgent military funding this winter. 

Your First Home scheme 

The Government will launch a new first time buyer Isa to replace the lifetime Isa and confirmed plans for its ‘Your First Home’ scheme, which will allow buyers to get on the property ladder with a 2.5 per cent deposit. 

They will also be offered an equity loan of up to 20 per cent of the property price, reducing the cost of their mortgage. 

The Burnham Budget is here… but what does it mean for YOU? Click here to sign up to Simon Lambert’s subscriber-exclusive newsletter series and learn exactly how to Protect Your Money. 

My female celebrity crush is Keira Knightley. I adore everything about her — the voice, the eyebrows and those slightly wonky teeth — so I’ll be watching the second season of Black Doves when it arrives on Netflix next week. I’ve seen her in Atonement countless times. To me, she is radiant, her imperfect smile illuminating the screen. Charming. Real.

But when I watched the film again recently, I was startled to discover that it was no longer Knightley who held my attention. Instead, I found myself looking at Vanessa Redgrave.

Her character, Briony, grows up during the war, before the NHS was created. She lived through rationing and is later shown as an elderly woman dying from vascular dementia. Yet none of that was what caught my eye. It was her teeth. They were so dazzling they could have blinded a man at 50 paces.

Perfectly straight, dazzlingly white and clearly expensive, they seemed completely disconnected from her difficult past, her age and the life she had lived.

Then the awful truth dawned on me. ‘Oh my God, no,’ I thought with a shudder. ‘I’ve turned into Vanessa Redgrave!’

For years, my teeth were marked by stains, countless fillings, cracked veneers and receding lower gums. But after travelling to Istanbul last year for new Turkey teeth, I now have a flawless set of young-looking pearly whites. They are, I have to admit, beautiful and natural-looking.

There is just one drawback: they are now framed by an older face.

I had imagined that my new smile would give me a fresh lease of life. I had wrecked my enamel during my teens and twenties, surviving — while suffering from anorexia nervosa for decades — on TaB soft drinks and Cox’s apples.

I wanted the immaculate teeth of the Princess of Wales and all those other women in the public eye. I imagined feeling more confident and sociable, no longer embarrassed to laugh in daylight or kiss a man.

So, like the 200,000 other Britons who travel to Turkey for dental treatment each year, I decided to take the plunge.

At a high-tech Istanbul clinic, dentists fitted immaculate, Armageddon-proof crowns over my teeth, which had been drilled down to tiny stubs. Artificial intelligence and lasers were used to improve the precision of the treatment.

I also underwent a gum transplant. Tissue was cut from the roof of my mouth and stitched over my exposed roots — making the phrase ‘long in the tooth’ feel particularly appropriate.

The same smile would have cost about £30,000 in the UK. In Turkey, my treatment came to just under £7,000, not including flights and hotels.

Once I returned home, I genuinely felt transformed. I stopped drinking red wine in case it stained my new teeth and found myself smiling far more often.

I became more positive and started taking greater care with my appearance. I even stopped going to bed in the same jumper I had worn all day.

My teeth had become something I wanted to live up to rather than let down. Unfortunately, the rest of me did not seem willing to cooperate.

I have deep hollows on either side of my mouth, while the skin on my chin is pitted like a crumpet. I had hoped to look ten years younger, but instead my new teeth seem to cast a powerful spotlight on every other sign of ageing.

In fact, my 24 perfect crowns now seem to be body-shaming the rest of me. Even the Uber Eats delivery driver noticed my smile. ‘My God, your teeth are amazing,’ he said, before entering my date of birth into his phone, taking a second look and shaking his head.

It’s as though I’m wearing a miniskirt; inappropriate, somehow.

And so my shiny new gnashers have become another way for me to feel like a fraud, unhappy in my skin.

I am like Bette Davis in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane: a grizzled, grotesque ghoul in babyish ribbons and lace, the daubed rouge and painted eyebrows only emphasising her loss of youth.

Feminist academic Kathleen Stock wrote in an essay that modern plastic surgery is now skewing physiognomy: the notion you can literally see someone’s mind or soul in their body and face; that reliable associations can be made between moral character and appearance traits.

She writes: ‘It starts to look psychopathic that we culturally approve of faces being sliced up and rearranged into stiffly impersonal, generic masks, for no other reason than the owner’s vanity.’

She even accuses plastic surgeons, and by extension cosmetic dental surgeons, of violent assault.

‘When you look in the mirror, the eyes, nose and mouth may all be in roughly the right places, but even you may not be able to tell who is looking back.’

At the moment, if I gurn in the mirror, I’m reminded of Donald Sutherland playing Lizzie Bennet’s dear old dad in the 2005 film of Pride & Prejudice. A toothy ghoul!

Kris Jenner, the 70-year-old Kardashian matriarch, now resembles her daughters after a facelift. Doubtless, she feels she is now the best version of herself. Thing is, she never looked this good, even when she was young. She has erased her history.

I’m guilty of the same vandalism. I no longer, thanks to my Turkey teeth, have a chipped front tooth.

When I was 12, my mum was washing my hair in the kitchen, as it was the only room with a small, electric heater. I was giggling so much, I crashed my teeth against the edge of the sink. Mum was devastated, and the chipped tooth meant I spent most of my youth with a hand in front of my mouth.

That reminder of how Mum tried to give me a life that was warm and happy is now erased. My smile is identical to that of a million social media influencers.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret my new teeth at all. My mouth is now healthier, aesthetically pleasing and pain-free.

But just as you land on holiday in the bright light of the Med and realise that black jacket is stained and your knees are hairy, so I realise the rest of me doesn’t quite measure up.

Of course, there is nothing more ageing than to lose one’s teeth: the face collapses, false teeth click and then sit – a blatant reminder of age and neglect – on a bedside table.

But be careful what you wish for. Your face and body, should you opt for expensive procedures, can resemble the Forth Bridge: no sooner do you fix one bit, another cracks.

And here’s a jarring collision – Kris Jenner might look like her daughters, but does she have their energy, curiosity, drive, passion?

It’s the pressure we put on ourselves – believing the lie we must look perfect to feel happy (I’m single, which doesn’t help) – that is rotten.

Not our teeth at all.

I recently decided to try to shore up my face, living up to my teeth, by visiting a clinic just off Harley Street. The bill for a raft of treatments – Thermage skin tightening, lasers for brown spots and thread veins – would cost about £6,000. Yikes.

But, having my make-up done for yet another photoshoot, I’m given a great tip by the make-up artist: ‘You need to fly to Korea. It’s the new Turkey for face work.’

I’m sorely tempted…

Set against the two previous tax-heavy Budgets delivered by the now-departed Rachel Reeves, today’s statement was noticeably less damaging to household finances and long-term wealth.

It also offered some welcome relief for small businesses, as Chancellor John Healey seeks to revive struggling high streets across the country.

Thank goodness, many people will be thinking. There were no fresh assaults on pensions and no further restrictions on families’ ability to pass wealth from one generation to the next.

But the Budget still contained several unwelcome surprises for personal finances, with savers and landlords bearing the brunt. In announcing another blow for those who plan prudently, Healey might well have made his predecessor proud.

When the Chancellor addressed savings interest in his speech, I initially assumed he was simply repeating a measure already known: taxes on savings interest, as well as income from second homes and buy-to-let properties, were due to rise by two percentage points from April next year. Reeves had announced that increase in last year’s Budget.

However, a closer examination of the extensive Budget documents revealed the true extent of Healey’s plan. He had laid the groundwork for another two percentage point increase on top of the rises introduced by Reeves.

From April, the tax rate on savings interest will therefore climb from 20 to 24 per cent for basic-rate taxpayers and from 40 to 44 per cent for higher-rate taxpayers. Additional-rate taxpayers will see their rate increase from 45 to 49 per cent.

The decision to target savers and landlords is difficult to understand.

Perhaps Labour chancellors simply cannot resist targeting those who have saved carefully.

Or perhaps Healey considered the tax increases acceptable because of his far more sensible decision to abandon the ill-judged cash Isa reforms Reeves had put in motion.

That means the planned reduction in the annual cash Isa allowance from £20,000 to £12,000 for everyone except over-65s will no longer go ahead next April. Under the revised plans, every adult will continue to be able to save up to £20,000 a year in a cash Isa.

Whatever the justification, the decision to raise taxes on savers still feels punitive. I will return to the Chancellor’s restoration of the £20,000 cash Isa limit for everyone, including the role played by This is Money and the Daily Mail in securing that reversal.

> Victory for our last ditch call to save the cash Isa

For household finances, however, Healey has taken a considerably more measured approach than his uncompromising predecessor.

That may reflect the growing pressure on family budgets, intensified by the unresolved conflict in the Middle East. Petrol and household energy costs are expected to keep rising, while inflation remains another threat to living standards.

The measures announced to ease the cost-of-living squeeze may appear modest individually, but they should not be dismissed.

Extending the fuel-duty freeze until next July was the right decision, although some analysts argue that Healey should have gone further and reduced VAT on fuel.

He also deserves credit for offering additional help with energy bills by extending the suspension of VAT on electricity until next July and delivering a one-off £100 payment to 20 million households in council tax bands A to D.

These steps will not prevent typical annual energy bills from rising above £2,000 next year, compared with the current price cap of £1,723. Nevertheless, they provide some support at a difficult time and are better than no help at all.

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The removal of standing charges on gas bills – likely to kick in next year – will also help many households, especially financially challenged pensioners who are often low gas users.

The Chancellor’s decision to ensure low-income pensioners are given a personal tax allowance top-up to ensure they don’t have to pay tax on any of their state pension is also to be welcomed.

Two final thoughts on the Budget: one positive, one negative.

First, the positive. Healey’s decision not to go ahead with a trimming of the cash Isa allowance for all bar the over-65s makes great commonsense.

As soon as we heard that Rachel Reeves was contemplating such a move early last year, we launched a ‘Hands Off Our Cash Isas’ campaign. 

We argued at the time that cash Isas are a key part of many people’s savings, whether in terms of providing a financial buffer, saving towards a dream holiday, or protecting some of their wealth from changes in the stock market. In other words, they should not be tinkered with.

Reeves listened, resulting in a smaller than anticipated reduction in the cash Isa allowance (down to £12,000 rather than £4,000) plus retention of the full allowance for the over 65s. For us, it was a pyrrhic victory.

Yet it turned to a full-blown victory in the Budget today. As soon as Healey announced the full U-turn, I received an email from Sarah Harrison, chief executive of the Building Societies Association (BSA), an organisation which had lobbied the Treasury to abandon the cash Isa changes.

She said: ‘This is a real victory for savers and for the Daily Mail’s brilliant Save Our Cash Isas campaign. You kept a strong public spotlight on an issue affecting millions of people while we kept the pressure on the Treasury.

‘Cash Isas help people build financial security and save for their futures, while also providing an important source of funding for mortgage lending.

‘Today’s decision shows those voices have been heard. Retaining the current Isa limit is a great outcome for UK savers, homebuyers, and the economy.’

I will say no more.

As for the negative. For all the benign nature of Healey’s Budget (the savings and second property tax increase notwithstanding), don’t be lulled into a false sense of security.

Lots of new taxes are coming down the road in the next couple of years; for example, inheritance tax on unused pensions (April 2027) and a crackdown on the amount that workers can pay into their pensions via popular salary sacrifice schemes (April 2029).

In addition, there is no end in sight to the freeze in tax thresholds which is dragging more of our income every year into higher tax bands.

My belief is that this Budget is indeed the ‘breathing space’ that Healey has claimed it is. But only in the sense that it is the calm before the storm.

If Burnham’s Labour were to win a snap General Election next year, I am 100 per cent certain that Healey would clobber us (Middle Englanders, that is) with another round of tax rises. You have been warned.

The parents of an eight-year-old girl who choked to death at school have released distressing surveillance footage showing her final moments in the cafeteria.

Recorded on April 15, the video shows Adrian Thompson approaching a school employee while struggling to breathe before running through the corridors in apparent panic.

Her parents made the footage from Velma Penny Elementary School in Lindale, East Texas, public as they seek answers about why staff members did not do more to assist her.

Texas Rangers previously found no wrongdoing by Velma Penny staff, and no charges were filed in connection with Adrian’s death.

‘We feel like people need to know about this,’ her mother, Anna Thompson told KHOU 11.

The footage shows Adrian leaving her lunch table at about 11.40am, coughing into a napkin with both hands held near her throat.

A few seconds later, she walked up to an unidentified woman and tapped her on the arm.

The Texas Rangers’ report said the employee thought Adrian was ill and directed her toward a trash can.

According to the report, the woman then asked Adrian ‘if she wanted to go to the restroom’. The girl indicated that she did.

The staff member subsequently directed Adrian out of the cafeteria through its double doors, the report stated.

The Texas Rangers report, however, does not describe what happened immediately afterward.

Surveillance video shows Adrian re-entering the cafeteria just 13 seconds later and seeking help from the same employee.

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Clearly distressed, Adrian waved her arms frantically as she approached the woman.

The adult appeared to direct Adrian toward the exit and followed as the girl left the cafeteria once again.

Footage from the school corridors then shows Adrian running toward the nurse’s office.

The Texas Rangers report said Adrian approached the nurse while ‘pointing to her mouth and trying to speak’. She then ‘began turning blue in the face’, according to the report.

The nurse said she performed the Heimlich maneuver on Adrian, but she collapsed. She then checked for a pulse and began performing CPR on the child.

There is no surveillance from inside the nurse’s office showing Adrian’s collapse. 

Troubling video from the school entrance shows medics performing chest compressions on Adrian as she is wheeled out of the building at 11.55am. 

She was rushed to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, where she died during the early hours of April 16. 

Her parents have launched a fundraiser to cover the medical bills involved in Adrian’s emergency care, including a life flight to Dallas as medics attempted to save her life. 

‘Our daughter, Adrian, passed away on 4/15,’ they wrote on the fundraising page. 

‘She was eight years old. We are heartbroken. She was loved beyond words, and our lives will never be the same’. 

The Daily Mail has approached Velma Penny Elementary School for comment.