Budget 2026 live: chancellor says scrapping gas standing charges will save 60% of homes £45 a year

John Healey says UK faces ‘difficult moment’ as he prepares to deliver first budget of Andy Burnham’s government

• You be the chancellor: play our budget game to see if you can balance the books

The Financial Times is reporting this morning that John Healey will
”use his budget to scrap controversial plans to slash the annual cash Isa allowance from £20,000 to £12,000, after concluding it was the wrong way to persuade people to invest more in stocks and shares”.

Most people in the City work on the basis that, if the FT is reporting a budget story on the day it is being delivered, it is safe to believe it is true. Investment companies have welcomed the news.

We welcome John Healey’s decision to reverse his predecessor’s controversial plans to slash the annual cash ISA allowance from £20,000 to £12,000. We have consistently argued that cutting the allowance was unlikely to achieve the government’s ambition of encouraging more people to invest, and risked making the stocks and shares ISA – the very wrapper it wants people to use – less attractive.

The decision to retain the full Cash ISA allowance is a sensible one. Whilst there is a legitimate policy objective in encouraging more people to invest for long-term growth, reducing the allowance risked being perceived as penalising sensible saving behaviour rather than promoting investing.

Ditching the gas standing charge rightly takes a big chunk off millions of people’s energy bills, sharing costs more fairly and giving cash-strapped households a much-needed boost. This measure will provide relief to the poorest households who ration their gas use but it will also mean that switching to electric heating such as heat pumps is a better deal for some households that use more gas.