Live updates as Jeremy Hunt cuts taxes in the autumn statement

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced his plans for the economy in this year's autumn statement. It comes just over a year after Mr Hunt's first statement as chancellor when he reversed almost all of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng's disastrous mini Budget.

Mr Hunt's biggest announcement was a cut to the 12% rate of National Insurance contributions paid by 29 million workers in the UK. He said he would cut the rate by 2% to 10%. He said that someone on an average salary of £35,400 would save £450 a year. The tax cut will be introduced from January 6 next year.

Labour's Rachel Reeves hit back immediately saying that the cut in the National Insurance was smaller than the rise in taxes caused by the government freezing the rate at which people start paying tax. As inflation has lifted incomes, this has brought more people into the tax net and increased the total raised by income taxes.

Read more: Transport for Wales bosses grilled over trains, delays and its huge compensation bill

Updates: Welsh Water bosses are grilled by MPs over illegal sewage spills and pollution

Speaking in the Commons, the key points of Mr Hunt's speech also included:

Mr Hunt also announced the National Living Wage will increase by over a pound an hour from April, from £10.42 to £11.44.

Mr Hunt said that the latest forecasts suggested that the rate of inflation would fall to 2.8% by the end of 2024 before hitting the 2% target in 2025. However Mr Hunt also released the latest economic growth forecasts for 2024 and 2025, which show a sharp downgrade to economic growth forecasts, down from 1.8% to 0.7% next year while 2025 has gone from 2.5% to 1.4%.

The autumn statement is one of the key financial events in the political calendar where the chancellor gives an