BREX RATED BOOZE & FAGS

We’ll be coffin up a terrifying £500m more to pay for EU exit Chancellor tries to sucker us by claiming austerity is over Labour dismiss quick fixes and half measures

And Theresa came dressed for the part too.. TERRIFYING Theresa May looked the part in the Commons, complete with creepy cape

PHILIP Hammond added an extra £500million to help pay for a bloody Brexit in his Halloween Budget yesterday.

The chilling Chancellor knows No11 Downing Street will be a house of horrors and that’s why £7billion was already set aside to deal with his Euro demons.

But though he likes to bare his teeth, everyone knows Hammond and his boss Theresa May are Westminster’s walking dead.

Although he played down the risks, Hammond warned that if the Brexit talks collapsed he would have to hold an emergency Budget in the spring.

He claimed “austerity is coming to an end” as he took advantage of better-than-expected tax revenues to promise a £30billion boost in public spending by 2024.

But experts said that the Budget did not mean austerity was over.

Responding to cross-party outrage over the consequences of eight years of Tory austerity cuts, he threw an extra £1billion to solve the social disaster being caused by the introduction of Universal Credit benefit.

NHS funding in England is to rise £20.5billion in real terms over the next five years, with Barnett consequences for the Scottish Government who runs the health service north of the Border.

There were only slight increases in growth forecasts for an economy overshadowed by Brexit.

Growth is forecast to be 1.6 per cent for 2019 but will bump along at 1.5 per cent for the years after as confidence sinks over Brexit.

The Brexit effect was everywhere to be seen although Hammond did not spell out the Brexit risks. According to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, the Government cut the cash set aside for departmental capital spending by £7billion in the coming years.

Labour MP Chris Leslie blamed Brexit, saying: “This is the incredible shrinking Budget – business investment revised down, exports looking poor and capitalspending cut from next year.” Nicky Morgan, chairwoman of the Treasury select committee and a Remain Tory MP, voiced concerns over the forecasts which underpinned Hammond’s Budget, given the uncertainty over what will happen in the coming months. The former cabinet minister told the Commons: “Brexit is the greatest and most imminent source of uncertainty looming over this Budget. It’s undoubtedly the case that our economy is going to be worse off because of Brexit. We could have the best possible deal and no deal that is secured would

be as good as the deal we have at the moment.” In response to huge pressure from his MPs and the opposition, Hammond announced an extra £1billion to tackle the growing crisis in Universal Credit, which will replace six in-work benefits.

He said increases in the “work allowance” component of the new benefit would make 2.4million working people and people with disabilities £630 a year better off.

There was a pathetic increase in the minimum wage by 38p to £8.21 an hour, which was greeted with

derision by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

He said the Budget was full of “half measures and quick fixes while austerity grinds on” and he attacked “ideological tax cuts” for the better off.

Labour said spending announcements in the Budget will do little to repair the damage to public services done by the Coalition and Tory governments.

The Chancellor’s Budget still leaves average workers £800 a year worse off than they were 10 years ago and others with a sense of injustice. Women Against State Pension Inequality campaigners protesting against losing out on pension rights held up banners and shouted from the public gallery as the Budget statement concluded.

Opposition MPs gave a standing ovation as a crowd of 80 protesters waved banners and chanted in protest at the Government’s previous decision to raise the state pension age from 60 to 66.

The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford praised their efforts. He said: “We all recognise that what we saw today was very much the spiritof the suffragettes.

“We on this side of the House understand the suffering of the women born in the 50s who have been betrayed by this Government.”

He added: “It’s about time many of these women that are suffering in poverty get what is theirs.”

Blackford said austerity would remain under the Tories and claimed the Budget leaves Britain “wholly unprepared for the Brexit bombshell heading towards us”.

He added: “‘An end to austerity’,

said the Prime Minister. Scotland’s budget will have been slashed by £1.9billion since the Tories came to power.”

But Scottish Tories claimed the budget amounted to a £1billion Barnett formula bonus for Scottish Government budgets as they welcomed a range of measures from City deals, a whisky tax freeze and help for the fishing industry.

Hammond introduced a tax on tech giants such as Google and Facebook but expected it would raise only £400million a year – a drop in the ocean compared to the profits the global companies make.

He announced an extra £1billion for the Ministry of Defence for cyber security and the increasing cost of the Trident nuclear submarine programme.

As expected, the Chancellor froze fuel duty for an eighth year, at a cost of £800million to the exchequer.

A freeze on beer, cider and spirit duties will be imposed over the next year.

But wine duty will rise in line with inflation and tobacco in line with its longstanding inflation escalator.