Autumn statement 2022 live: OBR says living standards to fall 7% as Hunt confirms millions to pay more taxes | Politics

Rory Carroll

Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement received a cool response in Northern Ireland where relief at a home heating oil support package failed to quell anxiety over austerity and public services.

The chancellor confirmed that all households in Northern Ireland will receive a £200 payment to help with energy costs. Originally the payment was £100 and limited to those who use home heating oil.

However it remained unclear when households in the region will receive an additional, long-promised £400 energy support payment. “This is imperfect but at least there is movement. We now need a clear timetable for this roll-out and the £400 electricity payment,” said Ian Paisley, a Democratic Unionist MP.

Other parties and business groups were more critical and said Northern Ireland remained in political and fiscal limbo, lacking an executive or assembly and facing a £650m hole in public finances.

“What was needed today was a credible plan to rebuild public services and grow the economy through investment in health, skills, and the transition to net-zero,” said Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson, Conor Murphy. “Instead the Tory budget announced today will push us deeper into an unnecessary recession.”

Northern Ireland’s paralysed political institutions and heavy reliance on the public sector has prompted concern that austerity will deliver a disproportionate hit to its economy.

UK households face a £1,700 fall in disposable incomes over the next two years, the Resolution Foundation has calculated.

That’s the conseqences of the record-breaking 7% drop in living standards which will hit the economy in 2023 and 2024.

Such a drastic squeeze will push average incomes back to 2014 levels, wiping out eight years of income growth.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, says Hunt’s autumn statement combined the rhetoric of George Osborne and the policies of Gordon Brown.

“In the short-term, the Chancellor has announced a smaller but more progressive energy support package, with two thirds going to the poorest half of households. But there will still plenty of rough justice – particularly for the 2.3 million low-income households who don’t receive means-tested benefits and therefore don’t qualify for lump-sum payments.

“The Chancellor announced concrete and big tax rises, disproportionately hitting middle and higher income households, while significant spending cuts were only pencilled in for after the next election and are unlikely to be delivered on the scale envisaged.

“Stepping back, the UK government has gone from announcing the biggest tax cuts in 50 years to the biggest tightening since 2010 in just a few weeks. Today provided the more reality-based version – but that reality will feel very tough indeed, as unemployment and energy bills rise, while average incomes fall by £1,700 over this year and next.”

Anti-poverty campaigners relieved benefits being uprated in line with inflation

Robert Booth

Anti-poverty campaigners expressed relief at the chancellor’s decision to raise benefits by 10.1% next year but warned that millions of the poorest people would still see their spending power fall amid rising inflation.

The increase is lower than the current 11.1% rate of inflation and follows years of cuts to the real value of benefits, affecting the lives of 9 million households – 7 million of which include someone who works.

On average, a family on universal credit will benefit next year by about £600, but analysts pointed out that increased payments would not arrive for another five months.

“This winter and beyond is still going to be a frightening obstacle course just to afford the essentials,” said Rebecca McDonald, the chief economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Alison Garnham, the chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said: “It’s a relief that benefits and the benefit cap will rise with inflation. But … today’s package will not stop the ice from cracking under struggling families.”

Action for Children’s director of policy, Imran Hussain, said: “Families we support will be greatly relieved,” but he said benefit levels “are still well out of step with what families need to live on”.

Hunt said there would be additional cost-of-living payments next year of £900 for households on means-tested benefits, but only £150 for people on disability benefits, which Disability Rights UK said was below inflation and like “being thrown peanuts”.

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, is being accused of leaking one of the main announcements in the autumn statement when he spoke in the Scottish parliament this afternoon.

At first minister’s questions Ross said the UK government was uprating pensions and benefits in line with inflation. At the time, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, was on his feet in the Commons. But the SNP say Hunt had not delivered the inflation-uprating news before Ross announced it to MSPs.

The SNP MP Brendan O’Hara said he was writing to the cabinet secretary demanding an inquiry. He said:

There are serious questions here, including on whether the ministerial code may have been breached – something which has even more relevance given the recent tawdry examples of Tory ministers playing fast and loose with the rules.

Douglas Ross may have thought he was being smart by pre-empting the chancellor in this way – but if the tables were turned he would be the first on his feet demanding an investigation, so he and his Westminster colleagues should now face the same level of scrutiny.

In 1947, Hugh Dalton resigned as chancellor after giving some details of his budget to a journalist a few minutes before he delivered his speech. The journalist worked for an evening paper, and the information appeared in print before Dalton had concluded his speech.

But nowadays budget leaking is much more common, and no one was surprised by the decision to uprate benefits in line with inflation, because ministers had strongly hinted this was coming.