Pre-Budget update 10

Dec 9 2009 By Andrew Mernin

Starting point from which NI is payable to be raised so that no-one earning less than £20,000 will pay any more in contributions.

Minimum real-terms increases in spending on front line NHS and schools guaranteed for two years from 2011, and free school meals extended to 500,000 primary school children.

The Chancellor sat down at 1.18pm.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said it was a ``pre-election report'' which had exposed "the full scale of the economic disaster'' the Government had overseen.