The Budget at a glance
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'Stability' was Alistair Darling's keyword in his first Budget speech, being mentioned half a dozen times in his opening lines. But what stats and facts did he also reveal? We take a look
Motoring
Fuel duty: 2p per litre increase scheduled for April put back to October, extra 0.5p per litre from 2010
Tax discs: Lowest polluting new cars to pay no road tax in the first year from 2010. Higher polluting cars will pay more.
Funding set aside to test road pricing
Life's little pleasures
Cigarettes: up 11p a packet of 20; cigars up 4p a pack of five, from 6pm tonight
Beer: up 4p a pint; Cider: up 3p a litre from Sunday
Wine: up 14p a bottle from Sunday
Spirits: up 55p as bottle from Sunday
Duties on alcohol to go up by 2% above inflation for next four years
Get home help
Environment
Laws to make supermarkets charge for plastic bags from 2009 unless they do it themselves first
Benefits
Child benefit for a first child up to £20 a week from April, 2009
From April 2010, all long term incapacity benefit claimants will attend work capacity programmes
Taxes
Corporation tax down from 38% to 28% from next month
Economy
Mr Darling predicted growth of 1.75%-2.25% this year, 2.25%-2.75% in 2009 and 2.5%-3% in 2010
Borrowing next year will rise to £43bn, 2.9% of national income. It will fall to 1.3% by 2012/13, said Mr Darling
