08/03/2017 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at Ten: Millions of self-employed workers

will pay more tax after Chancellor Philip

He's accused of breaking a Conservative manifesto promise

but he claims the Budget is all about building a brighter

We embark on this next chapter of our history confident

in our strengths and clear in our determination

to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain.

It's the last Budget before Britain starts the formal

Labour says it fails to address the crisis in public services.

It demonstrates again the appalling priorities of this Government.

Another year, tax breaks for the few, public

But there will be an extra ?2 billion for the social

care system in England, spread over three years.

We'll have detail and reaction from Westminster and beyond.

In Afghanistan, gunmen dressed as doctors killed at least 30 people

In South Sudan, the UN warns of a genocide in the making

and blames Government forces and local militia.

And, we talk to the former serviceman who's making

Coming up in Sportsday: There's one match in the Premier League

as Manchester City look to beat Stoke at the Etihad to go

The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has presented his first Budget,

promising to build a brighter future as the Government prepares

to start the formal process of leaving the European Union.

Among the main news was an extra ?2 billion to be spent on the social

care system in England over the next three years.

The Chancellor was accused of breaking a Conservative manifesto

promise by increasing National Insurance contributions for millions

And he offered some help for firms in England facing

We'll have details of the speech and we start with our political

Number 11 fears rainy days. At this end of the street there are nerves

there are more ahead. So there was no chance the Chancellor would

emerge to splash the cash. Saving for a rainy day, Chancellor? Coming

out for his first day holding the box, less broad smile, more grin and

bear it. Grinning and bearing it? From the lonely journey, to the roar

of the Commons bear pit. Where his boss hardly looked worried about how

he would perform. The right honourable mm. At his first and last

spring Budget, next time it will be in the autumn. 24 years ago, Norman

Lamont also presented what was billed then as the last Spring

Budget. Ten weeks later he was sacked. So, wish me luck today. The

country's finances less peaky than expected but as he knows, hardly in

the clear. I report today on an economy that has continued to

confound the commentators with robust growth, a labour market

delivering record employment and a deficit down by over two thirds. As

we start our negotiations to exit the European Union, this Budget

takes forward our plan to prepare Britain for a brighter future. But

no stop to cuts nor a sudden speeding up to clear the debt. Some

have argued that lower borrowing this year makes a case for more

unfunded spending in the future. I disagree. We on this side will not

saddle our children with ever increasing debt. But he did break

with the plan and arguably broke his party's manifesto promise,

announcing a tax increase on more than two million of the

self-employed. The difference in National Insurance contributions is

no longer justified by the difference in benefit

enentitlements. Such different treatment of two people earning

essentially the same undermines the fairness of our tax system. Around

2.5 million people will have to pay more. The average loss ?240 a year.

There are other changes to National Insurance too. Some Tory

backbenchers have cried foul, are furious at an attack on the Tory

tribe but the Health Secretary had reason perhaps to be pleased at what

was coming. Our social care system cares for over a million people and

I want to pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of carers who

work in it. But the system is clearly under pressure and this in

turn puts pressure on our NHS. He will spend ?2 billion of taxpayers'

money on social care in England. ?1 billion available in the next 12

months. And there is a longer term review of how to pay to look after

the elderly. After pleading to Number 11 about changes to business

rates, the Chancellor accepted there had to be a stop to those facing the

biggest hikes. The revaluation has undoubtedly raised some hard cases.

Especially for those businesses coming out of small business rates

relief. ?300 million will go to local councils to help small firms

with business rate rises. None of them will face hikes of more than

?50. There was extra cash for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

and for technical education in schools but with the seeds of a row

about National Insurance sown behind him the Chancellor's final words may

not be allowed to stand. We embark on this next chapter of our history

confident in our strengths, and clear in our determination to build

a stronger, fairer better Britain. I commend this Budget to the House.

The opposition lead's visible anger didn't mean he took the Government's

arguments apart. This was a Budget of utter complacency about the state

of our economy. When she took office the Prime Minister said if you are

one of those families, if you just are managing I want to address you

directly. This Budget does not address them. It failed them. This

Budget has done nothing to tackle low pay, nothing to solve the state

of emergency that persists with so many people demanding and needing

health and social care now. Others saw opportunity after only glance

mentions of the biggest issue around town. There is 100 billion extra

borrowing because the Government has chose a hard Brexit. You can't have

a strong economy with a hard Brexit. You can't have strong well funded

NHS social care or education with a hard Brexit. The Government has made

wrong choices snoochlt it was an awful Budget, it was the Brexit

budget that dare not speak its name, he barely mentioned brink. He has

confirmed he is wedded to the welfare cut punishing the poorest

and most vulnerable. An appalling Budget. Safety first? Not quite,

with the dispute over National Insurance, no Government wants

accusations it hasn't kept its word. Did you break your promise, Prime

Minister? It's rare any Chancellor and the

next door neighbour escape Budgets totally unscathed.

Laura Kuenssberg, BBC News, Westminster.

In his first Budget, Mr Hammond told MPs that

in the near term economic gret was expected to be higher

and borrowing lower than forecast in November.

But he said debt remained too high and the Government's

Our economics editor Kamal Ahmed is here with analysis

So, the Chancellor stood up at 12.30 and he had some good news and some

Let's look at the growth figures first.

Last November, peak gloom for economists

following the referendum, this was the growth forecast.

Just 1.4% this year, before slowing, climbing back to around 2% by 2020.

Today, better news, at least for this year, 2% growth for 2017.

But then a dip as Britain negotiates its way out

of the European Union, before recovering again back to 2%.

Well, the economy has had more momentum coming through 2016

and into the early months of this year than we expected back

in the autumn, but we haven't changed our view about the total

growth that the economy can sustain over the next five years.

So if you have more good news at the beginning of the forecast,

you have slightly weaker growth through the rest of it.

Last November, it was predicted the deficit, that's the difference

between what a government spends and what it receives in taxes,

would hit ?68.2 billion, on the far left of the graph,

before falling every year, to ?21 billion, by 2022.

Now, just for some context, it costs about ?100 billion to run

Again today, in the short-term, good news.

Borrowing this year will be better, at ?51.7 billion, but the picture

worsens next year before again borrowing falling to about

Around the same amount that was predicted in November.

Remember, George Osborne initially wanted to get us

Then he took that out to 2020 and Philip Hammond now says he's

So we could end up with 15 years, 15 years of austerity to get

Now, social care was the big spending commitment today

and there were two tax rises to pay for it.

A ?2 billion tax rise over the next five years,

paid by the self-employed in higher national insurance contributions

and a ?2.6 billion tax increase for business owners and investors

who take what's called dividend income from the shares they own.

Now, one thing was left out of the Budget box today and

that was any real mention of Brexit, but that doesn't mean companies

Businesses are feeling the weight of uncertainty very strongly.

They would like to have seen more to shore up short-term confidence,

particularly around business rates, but they will welcome

the investment in some of the longer term areas,

like skills and the recommitment to infrastructure investment.

This was actually a pretty short Budget, just 28 tax

and spend measures this year, compared with 77 in 2016.

But it was significant, big reviews are now in place on how

we tax the new world of work and the self-employed and how

The Chancellor's main tax change has proved controversial,

His decision to increase National Insurance contributions

for millions of self-employed people appears to go against

He's going to raise more money by targeting the dividend payments

Our business editor, Simon Jack, reports

Up and down the country small businesses, the bedrock of the

economy, got a surprise today when the Chancellor launched a tax raid

on the self-employed. Being your own boss means you pay a lower rate of

national insurance but today the Chancellor announced that lower rate

is going up to almost the same rate as a paid employee. That will cut

into salon owner Robert's take home pay but another type of national

insurance is being abolished so lower earners like some of his

stylists will be slightly better off. We have a number of

self-employed stylists here and I am pleased for them if their costs are

going down. But for me personally my bill is going to be several hundred

pounds a year more. Overall changes to national insurance for the

self-employed will mean that those earning ?12700, for example, will be

?70 a year better off in 2019. Someone earning ?17,000 will be ?20

worse off. And higher earnings making ?51,000

will be ?620 worse off. And Philip Hammond wasn't finished, he had more

bad news for entry treners. Company owners and shareholder can currently

Taxco-free, that is been slashed to ?2,000. You are taking a lot of

risk. You are assuming you are not going to get ill, maternity leave is

hard, I have a one-year-old. As part of that risk you assume there's

going to be benefits running a small business. As a country we are

pushing growing the number of small businesses in the country so a tax

like this just makes it harder. When something becomes popular, it

doesn't take long for the taxman to notice. Being your own boss is

becoming incredibly popular. There's been an explosion in the number of

self-employed people, who pay lower rates of national insurance than

regular employees. Some say today's raid is an attack on the kind of

self-starting risk-taking entrepreneurs the economy needs.

Others say it's high time the growing number of self-employed

people paid the same rate of tax as everybody else. Self-employment has

been the biggest story in the jobs market in years. It accounts for

nearly half of the employment growth since the down turn. The steps

announced by the Chancellor in today's Budget are bold and are

welcome in terms of moving towards closing the tax discrepancies

between the self-employed and employees. The nature of employment

is changing fast. The Government is reviewing better ways to tax it.

Some will wonder if raising the burden on the growing army of the

self-employed is the right place to start. Simon Jack, BBC News.

Let's look at other measures in today's Budget.

There were no new announcements on tobacco, but increases announced

previously mean that, from tonight, a price of a packet

From Monday, a pint of beer will go up 2p, a bottle of whisky by 36p

There'll be ?100 million to fund more GPs in Accident Emergency

departments in England next winter to ease the pressure.

There'll be ?270 million for science and innovation,

which includes research into robots and driverless cars.

There'll be ?90 million for transport in the north

of England and ?23 million for the Midlands to ease

The Scottish Government will get an extra ?350 million,

Wales an extra ?200 million and there'll be an extra

As we mentioned, the Chancellor announced an extra ?2 billion

for social care in England, admitting

that the system was clearly under pressure.

The money will be spent over the next three years.

But there has been criticism that it's still not enough,

Our social affairs correspondent, Alison Holt, reports

Four times a day, care workers help 76-year-old Avril Smith

with such things as washing, dressing and getting to the toilet

A stroke left her partially paralysed.

This is what the extra ?2 billion announced for social

Mrs Smith believes it's something the Chancellor had to do.

It's not just me, people need it, it's people that

So what would you say to the Chancellor about this

Get your hand in your pocket, stop being so tight.

How would he like it if he was sat at home all day and can't move?

For her husband, who cares for her the rest of the time, this

council-funded support is also crucial.

If I didn't get it for the last two or three years, I would have

been in my grave now, so it's vital that we get it.

And of the money the Chancellor has found, councils will get ?1 billion

in the coming financial year with the rest in the following two

With care companies struggling to recruit enough staff, they say

The staff will need to be paid a salary which represents the work

they undertake in the community, travelling around, visiting people,

like Mr and Mrs Smith, day in, day out, sometimes three or four

times a day, to give them the care they need.

We need to be able to support that in terms of a proper living wage.

In Nottinghamshire, the County Council spends about 45%

of its budget on adult social care, so the minute the Chancellor sat

down after his speech, here they began doing their sums.

These are our current savings plans...

The council calculates they'll get another ?7 million next year,

but they currently have a shortfall in their care budget of ?17 million.

The Labour leader, who wrote to the Chancellor warning the system

was in crisis after years of cuts, welcomes today's

We've still got temporary money in the system and there still needs

to be a longer term solution because one thing's for sure, we can

not carry on the way we are treating this almost as crisis management.

And with more younger adults with disabilities needing support,

the demand for different types of care is also increasing.

The Government has promised there will be a Green Paper

which looks at the funding of social care for the future.

Our political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, at Westminster.

For you, let us underline the themes of this Budget? Huw, Budgets can

completely change the atmosphere around here. Let's be frank, today

was not a vintage moment, but it was significant because this is the

first Budget with Theresa May and Philip Hammond in charge. It was a

mixture of short-term tweaks but a glimpse of what they would like to

do in the future. There were promises in different areas of

longer term solutions. Broadly, the picture is still not very pretty.

The cuts will go on. The documents today suggest that millions of

people around the country, public sector works, people whose benefits

have been frozen, are going to keep on feeling the pinch for quite some

time to come. On the other side, well the debt doesn't miraculously

somehow disappear any time soon. The overall back drop, of course of

course with uncertainty of leaving the EU as well is pretty

challenging. The Government has ended up with a row tonight with

some of their Tory backbenchers very unhappy over this policy that will

hike taxes for some of the self-employed. It's not quite clear

at this stage how much damage that will do, but I think for some

newspapers tomorrow it will get a hard landing in the headlines. Fleet

Street's reaction isn't all, Downing Street will be disappointed to find

that tomorrow's front page of the Sun will call this policy "spite van

man" poking fun of the Government's attitude Theresa May says she wants

to reach. Philip Hammond has a deserved reputation as a safe pair

of hands. He hasn't escaped this first Budget with a completely clean

pair of heels. That said, I think it's unlikely at this stage today,

his first Budget, historic in that sense, will be looked back as a

major, major moment. Laura Kuenssberg with her thoughts there

on the Budget. All the details of the Chancellor's

announcements are there with updates and analysis from our editors

and senior correspondents. Take a look at the site there for

us. Let's turn to the day's

other main stories. In Afghanistan, the Islamic State

group has said it was responsible for an attack on a military hospital

in the capital Kabul. At least 30 people died when gunmen,

dressed as doctors, Army commandos took several hours

to regain control after landing by helicopter on the roof,

as our correspondent, Smoke billows from Afghanistan's

largest military hospital, a small group of four or five

IS extremists have overwhelmed its defences and are using guns

and grenades to attack both medical Some are able to flee to window

ledges, high above the ground. One sends out a message

"pray for us." It takes helicopters,

laden with Afghan special forces, to counter-attack and several hours

of fighting to kill the jihadists. TRANSLATION: I was in the operating

theatre when a suicide bomber, wearing a white doctor's uniform,

came in and opened fire on me. When he fired on me,

I fell down on the ground. Somehow I escaped

using the back exit. Afghanistan's President said

the attack on a hospital But the inability of his security

forces to protect such an obvious target raises fresh doubts

about the ability of a fragile, often corrupt government to prevail

against the extremists Now that Isis is on the road

to defeat in Iraq, in Syria, you've got to ask yourself -

where are these guys going to go? Where are these fighters,

these terrorists, going to go? Unfortunately, Afghanistan, as long

as it remains unstable like this, is highly attractive to groups

like Isis for relocation. Which all makes Afghanistan look

more vulnerable than ever. No wonder America's top General

there has been urging the despatch of thousands more international

troops as military trainers A brief look at some

of the day's other news. In Wolverhampton, a man has

stabbed his sister to death West Midlands Police used

stun grenades to break Another woman, believed to be

the mother of the two, is in hospital in a critical

condition. Suffolk Police say they

are confident the body of the missing RAF airman,

Corrie Mckeague, will be The 23-year-old vanished

on a night out in Bury St He was last seen when a refuse

lorry was in the area. Police have started

a search of the site. "Extremely concerned"

about a security breach that led to WikiLeaks

publishing CIA documents. That's how President Donald Trump

is feeling, according Sean Spicer said at a news briefing

that the Trump administration intends to be tough on those

who leak information. A Maltese rock formation, featured

in the TV series Game of Thrones, The arch, known as the Azure Window,

was weakened by storms. South Sudan is edging closer

to genocide, according They accuse government forces

and militia of carrying out ethnically-motivated attacks

on civilians while using the current civil war as something

of a smokescreen. But the government of South Sudan

denies that the country Our Africa correspondent,

Alistair Leithead, reports now She'd travelled through the night

when she'd heard what happened. Isaac's body was found dumped

in the river, his ankles tied, TRANSLATION: My son

was fishing and saw the body. I don't know who did

it or why they did it. Government forces are

in charge of Yei Town. The civil war recently spread

to this part of the country where different ethnic groups

peacefully lived side by side. We're just a short drive

from the centre of Yei Town, but this is pretty much the limit

of where the army forces are prepared to go on foot

because the rebels control areas Houses and buildings in this

deserted neighbourhood The soldiers blame

wildfires or accidents. It's our mandate to make

sure civilians are safe. It might be the rule,

but it's not the reality, or at least not the reality we heard

from those who would talk, This man's sister was

assaulted by three soldiers. She's sure that they're

government soldiers? Another witness described 10 young

men being dragged out of their family homes,

chained together and This woman was attacked in her house

by soldiers in uniform. He took this iron,

he started to beat me. He was going to beat me on my head,

but I put my hands like that. Even though both sides

in this war have been implicated in atrocities,

these allegations were all "There's no killing or raping",

said the senior commander, "The only people we fight

are the rebels", he said. The survivors then claim civilians

were killed by the army, but we don't kill our own civilians

in our own country." In eight months, half a million

people have fled the country rather Everywhere you go in this area it's

the same, villages that People have closed up and taken

what they can with them. Hundreds of thousands of people have

crossed from here into Uganda. Others in the bush

because of the fighting. And there's a deeply

disturbing ethnic element underlying the deaths,

that people are being killed That's why the UN has warned this

could end in genocide. Alastair Leithead, BBC

News, Yei, South Sudan. Football, and Barcelona have pulled

off a stunning result in the Champions League,

beating Paris St-Germain Barcelona now progress

to the semi-finals after Neymar, Messi and Suarez,

Barcelona's Mott motto is - more than a club, no club had overturned

such a deficit. Suarez heard crossed line, just. It was a match about the

finest of margins and the referee's sometimes debatable judgment. Should

that a penalty? Messi scored a third, one more to level the tie or

one for more PSG, a cracker from Cavani that should have put the tie

to bed. An away goal that left Barcelona needing three. #12450urly

there wasn't time. Then Neymar did that. Then Neymar converted another

suspect penalty. Sergi stayed on side, swamped by his team-mates.

That was more than just a bowl. Barcelona are more than just a club.

Ollie Foster, BBC News. The amateur jockey, Guy Disney,

was the first amputee to ride a winner at a British racecourse

and on Friday he'll return to Sandown for the first race

since his victory last month. Disney is a former serviceman who

competes wearing a prosthetic leg. Our sports correspondent,

Andy Swiss, has been to meet him. It's not me trying to say -

look at me ride, missing a leg. I do this sport because I love

it, I want to win. Guy Disney was an army captain

in Afghanistan when, in 2009, he lost his lower right leg

in a grenade attack. His hopes of being a jump jockey

seemed over, but Disney was allowed to compete wearing his prosthetic

leg, a first in British racing and last month, at Sandown,

he rode into history. COMMENTATOR: Hats off

for Captain Guy Disney, he's going to win the Royal Artillery

on Rathlin Rose. His first thoughts,

for the young soldier who died alongside him and for those who'd

helped his recovery. I mean, I'm a product

of all the people who've slightly So from the guys who tucked

a tourniquet on my leg, to the doctors, the nurses,

the physios, to the racing world. Just quite nice quiet moment to just

try and take it in and think Just competing though

has been a victory. For four years, the authorities

wouldn't let him, fearing his prosthetic leg could get trapped

in his own stirrup. If I had my foot in the iron

and fell backwards and right, I'd get my toes caught like that

and then be dragged, which is, you know, a pretty

horrific experience. It took this device,

called a toe-stopper, It means you physically can't

get stuck in the iron. If I fall, you slide along the top

and you would come out. Yeah, so far so good,

it works really effectively. Since his injury, Disney has also

trekked to both Poles, but racing I've ridden around Cheltenham

at Bartow a few times since being injured,

not at the festival, but, yeah, if anybody

saw this and thought - God, I want to give a one-legged

bloke a ride, yeah, mad-keen. In this sport of hurdles none,

it seems, is too high. Lots to talk about on

this Budget evening. Not least with Treasury minister,

David Gauke, he'll be with us live in the studio to answer questions

about national insurance