Budget 2013: George Osborne’s statement in full

Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a Budget for people who aspire to work hard and get on.

It’s a Budget for people who realise there are no easy answers to problems built up over many years.

Just the painstaking work of putting right what went so badly wrong.

And together with the British people we are, slowly but surely, fixing our country’s economic problems.

We’ve now cut the deficit not by a quarter, but by a third.

We’ve helped business create not a million new jobs, but one and a quarter million new jobs.

We’ve kept interest rates at record lows.

But Mr Deputy Speaker, despite the progress we’ve made, there’s much more to do.

Today, I’m going to level with people about the difficult economic circumstances we still face and the hard decisions required to deal with them.

It is taking longer than anyone hoped, but we must hold to the right track.

And by setting free the aspirations of the nation, we will get there.