this is bbc news. i'm clive myrie. the headlines at 8pm... the chancellor philip hammond has increased national insurance bills for the self—employed, in his first budget. the move‘s led to accusations he's broken a manifesto pledge not to raise taxes. the budget included an extra £2 billion for social care in england, with the chancellor saying he's putting the economy on a solid footing. as we start our negotiations to exit the european union, this budget takes forward our plan to prepare britain for a brighterfuture. in response, the labour leader, jeremy corbyn, said the budget was built on unfairness and provided tax breaks for the few and public service cuts for the many. utter complacency about the crisis facing our public services and complacent about the reality of daily life for millions of people in this country. at 8:30pm we'll be answering your questions

about the budget in ask this. in other news, suffolk police say they're confident they will find the body of a missing raf airman at a landfill site. he has been missing since last september. the mother of corrie mckeague says it's only a matter of time before her son is found. and the documents released by wikileaks that appear to reveal the cia's attempts to use household gadgets to eavesdrop on people's conversations. good evening and welcome to bbc news. the chancellor has delivered his last spring budget and announced a few surprises, if no eye—catching giveaways. the overall economic picture is little changed, giving him limited room to manoeuvre. but philip hammond told a packed

house of commons he had managed to find an extra £2 billion for social care in england, to be spent over the next three years. more controversial pledge was his decision to increase national insurance contributions for almost 2.5 million people — despite a conservative manifesto promise that national insurance wouldn't go up. mr hammond also tackled criticism of the government's plans to increase business rates in england and wales by promising an emergency relief fund for those businesses hit hardest — and by capping the increase for most pubs. the labour leaderjeremy corbyn described it as a budget of utter complacency. our deputy political editor john pienaar has our first report tonight. chancellors always hang around in the street on budget day. but brexit, a bit like the weather, turned out nicer so far than the forecasters expected. any spare cash in there, chancellor? he had more spending power thanks to higher growth and lower borrowing. but brexit won't be a smooth or quickjourney, not that the chancellor is too worried about his labour opponents. at westminster, as the time came

round towards the budget, his boss, rightly or wrongly, seemed to see labour's leader as a bit of a joke. and more than just a bit. philip hammond! and the chancellor allowed himself to keep the tone upbeat. 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 brighterfuture. they call him spreadsheet phil — businesslike, proud to be boring. so, no spending sprees. we on this side will not saddle our children with ever—increasing debt. but we'd have higher bills to pay and, for millions, that meant higher taxes — on company owners, who pay themselves in share dividends,

and a hike in national insurance for the self—employed, though the tory manifesto did promise to keep national insurance down. employed and self—employed alike use our public services in the same way. but they are not paying for them in the same way. on national insurance, there is a tax hike for the self—employed. their national insurance contributions will go up to ii% in 2019. the chancellor says this will help raise £145 million. other changes raise much more. but some tories are unhappy. paying for social care is now an urgent problem and the chancellor had promised mps he'd find cash to buy more time. but the system is clearly under pressure and this, in turn, puts pressure on our nhs. for social care, there'd be an extra £2 billion over three years, with £1 billion of it available in the next year. he said the long—term funding options would be announced, but what he called labour's "death

tax" on estates was ruled out. companies, including pubs, are being hit with higher business rates after revaluation, and that has worried mps and forced the chancellor to pour out a little comfort. cheers! small businesses are taken out of paying rates altogether. but the revaluation has undoubtedly raised some hard cases, especially for those businesses coming out of small business rates relief. so to ease the burden of business rates, local councils will be given £300 million to help the worst hit. no small business losing rate relief will see their bill increase by more than £50 a month. there'd be a £1000 discount on rates for pubs with a rateable value of less than £100,000, 90% of them. getting britain fit for brexit meant cash for new schools, grants for technical education and spending on technology and science. cue anotherjoke at the expense ofjeremy corbyn. who is now so far down

a black hole that even stephen hawking has disowned him. he didn't see the joke at all. but the chancellor was into his stride and feeling upbeat. 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. mr corbyn had his counterattack ready. this was a budget of utter complacency about the state of our economy. utter complacency about the crisis facing our public services. and complacent about the reality of daily life for millions of people in this country. the government was failing in its own ambitions. when she took office, the prime minister said, if you are one of those families, if you're just 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. extra money for wales and scotland, meant to cement the case for the union, was never likely to head off nationalist condemnation. it was an awful budget, the brexit budget that dare not speak its name. he barely mentioned brexit, the biggest single risk to the uk and scottish economy. he's confirmed he's wedded to the welfare cuts, punishing the poorest and the most vulnerable. an appalling budget. taxes are on their highest rate for nearly a generation. wages are declining, when you unmask the creative accounting in the budget that is the reality of westminster economic policy. a strong backlash, then, for a relatively small—scale budget. but fierce controversy is normal now, on britain's long march to brexit. john pienaar, bbc news, west minster. for the economy there's little change.

it will grow faster than expected for 2017 but then fall back to grow more slowly. government borrowing will be lower in the short term, but over the coming five years we'll still borrow over £100 billion more than forecast at the last budget. andy verity has been studying the numbers. in the autumn, the outlook was gloomy. convinced that the prospect of leaving the eu soon would hurt the economy soon, the office for budget responsibility predicted a sharp slowdown this year. they were wrong. the economic climate has brightened up. the chancellor still has a giant overdraft, but he's using a bit less of it than he thought he might. back in the autumn, the prediction was for weak growth this year, dropping to 1.4% but picking up again a couple of years from now. now the economy's predicted to grow much faster this year — by 2%. but after that it's expected to slow down — with weaker growth two to three years from now. 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 for the rest of it. that pattern — faster growth now, but a slowdown later on — is reflected in the amount the chancellor has to borrow because, like most chancellors, he spends a lot more than his income. in the autumn he thought he'd have to borrow £68 billion this year. but now he'll only have to borrow £52 billion, because the economy's doing better than expected — so he's collecting more in taxes. however, if you look at five years from now, he'll still be borrowing £17 billion — the same figure we had last autumn. and he's had to find some way to raise money so it doesn't look worse than that. over the whole parliament, the message today from the office for budget responsibility is that the challenge remains. most of the deterioration in the public finances over the parliament that they forecast

before christmas stays in place and, mostly as a result of changes associated with brexit, we still have a really challenging parliament to come. so here's what you might call the taxing question — will those with the biggest shoulders bear the biggest burden? if you look at corporations, they're getting a tax cut five years from now worth £2.6 billion. meanwhile, those receiving dividends, including 600,000 people who own their own companies, will pay an extra £900 million. and 4 million self—employed people earning more than £16,000 will pay an extra half a billion. philip hammond says those tax—raising measures make the system fairer. but, of course, self—employed people asked to pay more in tax might not see it that way. andy verity, chief political correspondent vicki young is at

westminster for us tonight the big ta ke westminster for us tonight the big take away... i hate that raged, take away. the big talking point from this budget for lots of people will be national insurance contribution rises. has mr hammonds painted himself into a corner with this because of the manifesto pledge not to raise taxes? i think they have a problem with this, with these budgets we sometimes see things unravelling in a few days that followed. this has run into trouble pretty quickly. straight afterwards the treasury to agree to —— a briefing, lots of questions from journalists about the manifesto commitment. david cameron went into that election saying there will be no rises in the main taxes such as vat, income tax and national insurance, anyone reading the tory ma nifesto insurance, anyone reading the tory manifesto would not have expected what happened today. the treasury argued that when they did the legislation, locking those taxes on making sure it was written into law, they made it clear which bit of national insurance they were talking

about, but that is not the point. the manifesto that people might have voted on seems to be a pretty clear reach. then you have the policy itself, the argument from the treasury is that this is about fairness, why should one set of people who work pay differently to another when their pensions are now the same, most of the benefits are the same, most of the benefits are the same, most of the benefits are the same part, crucially, of course, from maternity and paternity leave, and they will have a review into all of that. but the headlines tomorrow could be pretty brutalfor philip hammond. there were tory mps who raised it with him at a meeting of tory backbenchers, the question is if they will be prepared to votes against their own government on it, maybe not. a little bit of disquiet in tory ranks about national insurance contributions. we know there are some in the conservative party anxious about the constituents in their areas who may have to deal with the revaluation of business

rates. did you think the chancellor has done enough to alleviate some of those fears? i think that was one of the other crucial issues, the revaluation which many people said was long overdue, lots of people will pay a lot less than they were that there will always be losers in this kind of thing, which really upset a lot of tory mps. for one year he has brought in some measures to alleviate that and we have not heard an awful lot of disquiet about that. the other issue upsetting a lot of mps, notjust tories but on other sites, social care, it has had so other sites, social care, it has had so many headlines over the winter, he has come up with £2 billion for councils in england because he clearly had to act on it. it should help, it is not an insignificant amount, but the opposition sabre cut the cuts that councils have had over the cuts that councils have had over the last few years. —— but the opposition sabre look at the cuts. looking at the long—term, yet again another review of social care

financing. we have had a quite a few times, lots of work has been done and there are plenty of papers on the shelf he could pick up and look out, it has got to the point where a politician of any partyjust out, it has got to the point where a politician of any party just as out, it has got to the point where a politician of any partyjust as to make a decision and it will be very difficult, it will have to be a brave decision. the question is whether philip hammond is prepared to do that. there have been cross— party to do that. there have been cross—party talks but they failed terribly last time, will they be able to come to a long—term solution on this very crucial issue? many thanks, vicki young. with me now is the political economist will hutton, who also chairs the big innovation centre which helps businesses move forward. what is your overall impression of this budget? it had a little bit more wiggle room because of the obr's more wiggle room because of the 0br's increased growth forecast for the next year, but we know there are

headwinds, whether it is inflation, the effect of brexit and so on?” personally take the view that brexit is much more serious than the office for budget responsibility allowed for, so i really don't believe these forecasts. you think they have been overgenerous? yes, i think things will look much worse in 2018, 2019 and 2020 dummy forecast. i think inflation will be higher, exports will be less responsive, i think the situation will be much more depressing than the picture painted here. i think philip hammond thinks that, to a degree, he has kept some of his powder dry and not spend what he could have. in that sense i think, as you'd expect, he has been conservative. look, george osborne in david cameron wanted to reduce the state to an astonishingly small

proportion of gross domestic product, that remains in tact. we will see some big, real cuts in departmental spending, will see some big, real cuts in departmentalspending, people sending their kids to school, legal aid, hospitals, public services in the round, they will feel very, very squeezed in medias ahead. that is the big, big story of the budget. within that, he has done bits and pieces that you have to give a mild round of applause to. he has found some money for innovation, preannounced a couple of days back. and to measures on productivity. i think the 500 million allocated for apprentices is big potatoes. within an overall looking into a glass darkly, he has done one or things. why are you so down on the 0br projection? no one predicted that the public would continue to spend the public would continue to spend the way that they have since the votes last june to the way that they have since the votes lastjune to leave the european union, that is what has

been driving the economy so far. the great british consumer. what makes you think that. . i think the great british consumer has borrowed a lot, she is pretty indebted and worried about that. i think that her wages will not go up in line with the increase in inflation so she will feel the pinch, you can already see it in the figures, the growth of retail sales outside food in the last few months has been stagnating, for the first time since 2011. i think that will continue. will investment pick up where the great british consumer is leaving off? i don't think so, i think investments depressed last year, i think it will remain depressed. why would you invest, given the uncertainty of brexit? even the 0br is not very confident about exports and i don't see whether growth motor is coming from, i see a lot of uncertainty.

given that the government in its 2015 manifesto said it was not going to increase taxes, where do you see his decision today to do just that? the treasury says that it only did the legislation, the triple lock on this category one of national insurance, and self—employed national insurance was outside the promise, i don't think a single person in britain understood that in the general election, so i think he will get a hammering. the political position of the government is so impregnable that if they want to drive this to they can, they can and will make that argument. it is kind of true. the treasury did keep self—employed national insurance contributions out of the promise and no one noticed or picked it up at the time, they should have. i think

he will come back hard, so will theresa may. most tory backbenchers will toe the line. he has kept a war will. has gm a huge war chest. massive, chest... a huge war chest. massive, he says it is a tanker full of oil or something. we get the gist. the fa ct or something. we get the gist. the fact is that we are nowhere near getting to the point where we can balance the books, we are only halfway through austerity and have brexit around the corner as well, it could well be a very, very long road. that is exactly what i think. i haven't, but the national conversation is, my god, there was all that talk of bad times after brexit, the terrible budget that george osborne promised and all the rest of it, it hasn't happened, the economy has been much more buoyant than people thought, even the bank

of england who were so worried in the aftermath of brexit are rolling back a bit on their pessimism. personally my view is that in the same way that things have been better than people expected in the first nine months since brexit, so things will be worse than people expect going forward. i think that the unwinding of the british economy and meshed in the european union as it is will be really, really hard. it could be in the aerospace industry, pharmaceutical industry, education, agriculture, fishing, space, wherever you look we are intertwined with the european economy and the people in those sectors will hold back on investment until it becomes clear what the relationship will be, and nobody will know that for two years. tighten your belts! and ahmad pessimistic note, we will leave it. good to see you, will hutton, thank you. —— on that pessimistic note.

and at 8:30pm we'll be answering your questions and suggestions about personal finance and the budget. please get in touch — you can text us or send an email, or contact us via twitter using the hashtag #bbcaskthis. more on the budget later in the programme — and more, of course, on our website. that's at bbc.co.uk/budget. all the details of the chancellor's announcements are there, with updates and analysis from our editors and senior correspondents. and we'll find out how this story — and many others — are covered in tomorrow's front pages at 10:a0pm in the papers. they will have a lot to say about this! our guests joining me tonight are ruth lea, economic adviser at arbuthnot banking group and caroline wheeler, political editor at the sunday express. do is stay with us for that. the headlines on bbc news... the chancellor philip hammond has increased national insurance bills for the self—employed, in his first budget. the move's led to accusations he's broken a manifesto pledge not to raise taxes. the budget included an extra £2 billion for social care in england,

with the chancellor saying he's putting the economy on a solid footing. in response, the labour leader, jeremy corbyn, said the budget was built on unfairness, and provided tax breaks for the few and public service cuts for the many. in sport, manchester city are looking to move to second in the premier league with a win at home against stoke. there are 15 minutes gone, 20 minutes now, at the etihad, no goals. barcelona have pulled a goal back in the second leg of their champions league last 16 tie against paris saint—germain. luis suarez scored but they still trailed 4—1 on aggregate. ronnie 0'sullivan is trailing judd trump at the players championship in london below. it is the best of five. —— the players championship in llandudno. a search team investigating the disappearance of the missing raf airman corrie mckeague has trawled

through 60 tonnes of waste at a landfill site in cambridgeshire. his mother has said she thinks it's only a matter of time before his body is found at the site. he vanished during a night out in bury st edmunds last september, as our correspondent ben ando reports. it's a dirtyjob but it could provide the answers to a mystery that has baffled police for nearly six months. the search for missing raf serviceman corrie mckeague is now focused on this landfill site, just outside cambridge. 23—year—old corrie from fife was serving at raf honington. last september, he went on a night out with friends in nearby bury st edmunds. he told them he would walk home, but never made it. corrie was last seen at 3:24am, entering a service area behind some buildings. there were several bins there. the police knew a bin lorry called about an hour later. that lorry then travelled to barton mills, where corrie's phone pinged a nearby mast, and ended its journey at the landfill site. the police know that they'll be criticised for not starting this sooner.

but they said originally they were told the bin lorry was only carrying waste of up to 11 kilos. when they learned quite recently it was actually nearer 100 kilos, or more than 15 stone, that changed everything. that was quite a sobering moment. we've been committed to this investigation nearly six months now. i'm the investigating officer. i can't imagine what that feels like for corrie's family. his family admit they've been frustrated by the investigation, but say now all that matters is finding him. it's not the agony of not knowing. because when you don't know you can still believe that they're alive. the agony is when you do know. we've just got to find him first. and, as the search continues,

for now, so does the waiting. ben ando, bbc news, cambridge. are you being spied on as you're watching the news tonight? is your television hacked into — so that the intelligence agencies can listen to your conversations? that's the extraordinary suggestion in documents, apparently from the cia, released last night by the organisation wikileaks. today the companies which make the devices say they're urgently investigating the claims. here's our security correspondent gordon corera. could your tv be spying on you? if you've got an internet connected tv, that might be possible. secret documents show how the cia have turned tvs into bugging devices, giving the capability a codename, weeping angel — named, it seems, after characters in the doctor who tv series. a team of security researchers showed me how they've replicated the cia's capability. so how is it possible to turn a tv like this into a bugging device? modern tvs are basically powerful computers.

they've got lots of processors on there. but most importantly they have microphones and internet access. so we have written an application here, the screen is almost blank, it listens to everything we're saying and sends it off to a third party. hopefully not the cia. once the apps installed, it makes it look like your tv is off when it's actually on. we've infected it with malware and now we have a microphone here that listens to anything you say. hello, is anyone listening? hi, tv. it is possible that your tv is being used as a spy, as a big brother in your living room. but how likely is it? the leaked documents show the cia worked with britain's m15 to develop this capability, to target specific individuals. m15 won't comment but surveillance is a key tool in its work to catch terrorists. bugging buildings and cars is something it's been doing for decades. the latest digital technology simply offers new ways to do that. and — they say — to keep us safe.

for the cia the leak of hundreds of pages of documents is certainly embarrassing, highlighting its failure to keep its own secrets. and a former head of the agency told the bbc the leak would have consequences. this seems to be an incredibly damaging leak in terms of the tactics, techniques, procedures and tools that were used by the central intelligence agency to conduct legitimate foreign intelligence. in other words, it's made my country and my country's friends less safe. the latest technology has turned on new ways to monitor people. but the debate over what that means for all our privacy is not one that's going to be turned off. gordon correra, bbc news. west midlands police say a man in wolverhampton has stabbed his sister to death, before killing himself. 0fficers used stun grenades to break into the flat this morning. another woman, believed to be the mother of the two, is in hospital in a critical condition. a senior executive at toyota has

suggested the japanese car—maker may delay deciding whether to build the next auris model in the uk. he said the decision would be made when more is known about the outcome of britain's negotiations to leave the european union. toyota currently builds the auris hatchback at its burnaston plant in derbyshire. more than 30 people have been killed and dozens wounded in an attack by islamic state militants at a hospital in the afghan capital kabul. local officials say the three gunmen were dressed as doctors. the security forces killed them after several hours of fighting. malta ‘s famous as your window rock arch has collapsed into the sea after heavy storms. the limestone formation was featured in the first episode of the hbo series game of thrones and in several films. rai minuted joseph muscat said the news

is heartbreaking. the study said that world via road and was inevitable the structure was not in imminent danger of collapsing. signs and afine imminent danger of collapsing. signs and a fine to stop people from walking across the landmark had recently been introduced but were often ignored. soon we will have your questions on the rom of occasions for you and yourfamily, potentially, the rom of occasions for you and your family, potentially, of the rom of occasions for you and yourfamily, potentially, of the budget. —— on the ramifications. but now the weather. spring lights —— springlike weather will be found more widely tomorrow. northern ireland in northern england enjoyed the best weather this afternoon. quite windy with 30... further shows across scotland. snow to the tops of the hills might brush the north of northern ireland in northern counties of northern england for a time, not much frost, medicine spots in eastern scotland

during the first part of the night. o nto during the first part of the night. onto thursday morning, a drier, brighter way... day in south wales in southern england that into the far south—western parts of cornwall you will get further outbreaks of rain. a misty, murky start across southern england and south wales, across the rest of england and wales into northern ireland, cindy said dry, sunny weather to begin the day. across scotland, some showers, but the central belt and southwards will begin to fade and we are left with a scattering of showers on the winds. it is not a noticeable feature in northern scotland on the northern isles. still a bit more cloud and two southern coastal counties of england and south wales compared with elsewhere, borrowers are swayed you get some lovely sunshine coming through, temperatures widely in double figures. feeling really pleasant, it might get to 16 celsius in south—east england. with clear skies down the eastern side of the uk through