Will you feel better or worse off after the autumn statement? ITV News experts explain

Jeremy Hunt's two biggest announcements - incentivising work by cutting employee National Insurance by two percent and extending tax breaks for business investment - were certainly aimed at growth. But the statisticians say there will barely be any growth in the run up to the election and living standards are predicted to fall before they start rising again. ITV News experts take a look at the details behind the headlines

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced a raft of tax cuts, tighter welfare rules and further measures aimed at getting more people into work within his autumn statement.

He used his speech to the House of Commons to introduce changes aimed at reviving the UK's struggling economy and the Tories' election chances.

Among the changes he announced was a cut in National Insurance, an increase in benefits, as well as pensions rising and a boost to minimum wage.

Here, ITV News experts give their analysis of what the autumn statement means for you.

ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston gives his initial assessment of the chancellor's autumn statement

Those people in work will be a bit better off. The two percentage point cuts in the National Insurance, which everybody in work pays, does represent a tax saving effectively of several hundred pounds - £400 or £500 for those on typical earnings.

That is the giveaway. But let's be clear, Hunt did not unveil today what you might call a booming economy for the next year into the election.

The forecasts from the independent forecasts of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is for almost no growth this year and next - not far off a half percent growth in both years, and that's next to nothing.

People are not going to be feeling massively prosperous. Hunt says that he is being cautious, he doesn't want to take risks with inflation. It's quite interesting, though, that actually the forecasts for inflation have actually gone up a bit.

ITV News Consumer Editor Chris Choi answers questions from the public about the autumn statement

I'll have to look at the detail of the OBR analysis to see whether that is to do with the kind of measures that he's announced. The biggest thing that he's announced, however, is a significant set of tax allowances for businesses. These are worth £11 billion a year and allow businesses to claw back every penny of what's called capital investment from their tax bill.

They were supposed to run out after three years, but will now be made permanent. The OBR says, and this seems to me to be right, that this will stimulate investment and growth.

But in terms of how we will feel in terms of our prosperity, these things take quite a long time to feed through to our prosperity.

These are long term measures, and some would say that's a good thing. This is a chancellor taking the long term view and not essentially taking short term risks. But politically, with a year to go before the election, some of his colleagues will be a bit disappointed.

ITV News Business and Economics Editor Joel Hills explains what impact the autumn statement will have on public services

What you got from the chancellor today was a couple of really good jokes and a whole series of policy pledges, which amounted to giveaways for all sorts of people.

Interesting that pensioners do rather better than those on working age benefits in terms of the uprating. But basically you're wondering, where is all this money coming from?

And the answer? Inflation. It hasn't left us better off as a country, but what it has done for the chancellor is it has boosted the cash value of tax receipts.

At the same time, it has lifted his welfare bill and made the government's debts, which are considerable, more expensive to service. What it hasn't done, though, is lifted the cost of public services because they're fixed in cash terms.

So, the chancellor finds himself with this boost lower borrowing because of inflation. How's he spending it? Not on front line public services, which, let's be clear, the budgets are looking pretty tight for next year already. Instead, he uses that money to give away.

He's used it to fund his national insurance cuts, to fund his welfare reform, which the OBR says does boost growth in five years time by wait for it... 0.3%. That's not really turbocharging growth, is it?

ITV News Deputy Political Editor Anushka Asthana examines the detail of a benefits crackdown for some people

The government has had a problem for some time. There's been an increasing number of people who are off work with long term sickness and, therefore, on out of work benefits.

It's costing more and more and the reasons for that are mixed. There seems to be an increase in mental health issues, some of it might be long-Covid as well as an increase in mobility issues.

And they're saying more people have to go back to work, that we have a more flexible environment where you can work from home. So, if you're in that situation we will support you to find jobs that are appropriate for you. But if you don't take them, then first you'll be on mandatory job placements and then you will lose benefits.

There's lots of worry from disability charities that I'm talking to about what that might mean. They feel that this is demonising one group of people for whom those flexible jobs are perhaps not quite as easy to find as the government is suggesting.

But it's part of the narrative that Rishi Sunak wants to build about the idea that he is more of a right wing Thatcherite Tory than the economic situation has allowed him to be.

Now, that headroom has meant that there have been increases in benefits and pensions which they were genuinely considering not doing in full. The 6.7% on benefits and the 8.5% on pensions - which we revealed over the weekend - and also quite a significant increase in housing benefit to cover the lowest 30% of rents. That's been frozen for many years and many felt it was fueling a homelessness crisis.

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