Yesterday’s budget delivers Lib Dem policies to help families with the cost of living and invest in the future of our economy, while making responsible choices to deal with the financial problems Labour left us with.

We are delivering the £10k personal allowance from April 2014 – one year earlier than planned. “This is great new for those on low wages” says Bill Winlow, “ It will help family budgets and ease financial burdens”.

Stronger economy: We are investing in house building, increasing our longer term capital budgets, providing funding for Vince’s industrial strategy, incentivising further employee ownership, and introducing a new national insurance employment allowance to help small and micro businesses hire their first employee or expand their workforce.

Fairer society: We are cutting income tax and fuel duty to help hard pressed families; supporting businesses to create jobs and cracking down on those who seek to avoid or evade paying their fair share.

Responsibility:  This budget is unflinching but not unthinking; we are sticking to the plan to reduce the deficit, but we will not chase targets. There are tough choices on spending to come.

Under the Coalition Government, the deficit has been cut by a third, over 1.25m private sector jobs have been created and interest rates are near record lows, benefiting businesses and families.

Liberal Democrats are committed to reducing the deficit and promoting confidence in the sustainability of the public finances. The UK’s medium-term consolidation plans have restored fiscal credibility, allowing more activist monetary policy and enabling the automatic stabilisers to support the economy.