Britain’s wine drinkers might feel a little bitter tonight; wine duty is going up, while other ‘sin taxes’ are frozen.

Daniel Lyons, Head of Tax Policy at Deloitte, explains:

“Wine drinkers will be disappointed to note that the duty on their preferred tipple will increase by 8p per bottle (effective 1 February 2019), whereas drinkers of beer, ciders and spirits will benefit from the freeze.”

But Jon Ostler, UK CEO of Finder.com, points out that beer drinkers are already taxed pretty highly:

“Most Brits will be pleased to see the freeze on duty to pints of beer, cider and spirits. There is an argument that an increase in tax could have raised more funds for other causes, but there is also no denying that we currently pay more than most countries for a local pint.

Our research of the most populated cities from each country in the world found that a London pint costs 82 percent more than the global average and was the 22nd most expensive city.”

This is from ITV’s Robert Peston.

This backs up the chatter we picked up earlier. (See 6.13pm.)

Here is the budget in five charts.

Robert Chote, the head of the OBR, has told Sky News that Theresa May spent most of Philip Hammond’s windfall four months ago.

Not the first time, of course. Back in 2000, Gordon Brown famously effed and blinded at Tony Blair after the PM announced a £12bn boost for the NHS on Sunday morning TV.

Here is Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, on the budget.

The work allowance increase is unequivocally good news for families receiving universal credit but a bigger salvage operation is still needed for the benefit. And bringing forward higher tax allowances – which will cost much more than the universal credit change – will mainly benefit the richest half of the population. We look forward to hearing more detail on how the secretary of state will use the extra £1bn to ease the migration of people on existing benefits to universal credit.

This is crunch time for universal credit. We hope the chancellor’s positive announcements on work allowances will be followed by a pause in the roll-out to allow for a fundamental review of its design and, crucially, for a commitment to restoring all the money that’s been taken out of universal credit.

Women protesting against changes to their pensions shouted “shame” and jeered from the public gallery as Philip Hammond delivered his budget speech. As the Press Association reports, a crowd of 80 members of the Women Against the State Pension Inequality (Waspi) group waved banners and chanted in protest at the government’s previous decision to raise the state pension age from 60 to 66. Some 3.9m women have been affected by the changes and the Waspi group has made several high-profile protests including blocking a road outside parliament earlier this month.

The SNP has been particularly supportive of the Waspi women’s case and several SNP MPs tweeted supportive pictures or video.

This is from our colleague Heather Stewart.

Don’t tell Brenda from Bristol, but there’s some chatter in the City tonight that Philip Hammond may have been paving the way for an early general election.

Jonathan Riley, head of tax at accountancy group Grant Thornton UK, suspects the extra money universal credit and the NHS, and the personal tax allowance changes, will all appeal to ‘swing voters’.

Riley adds:

“The big announcement related to the bringing forward of the increase in the personal tax allowance – to £12,500 – in April 2019 – a year earlier than expected. This, together with other measures, will see the average family being around £1,000 a year better off, a measure that will be welcomed by many following sluggish wage growth. Furthermore, if there is a downturn after Brexit, it might keep the tills ringing and prop up consumer confidence.

“This Budget leaves all options open – including the prospect of an election before the end of March 2019. It deals with current challenges and leaves the door open to the main event – the fundamental spending review – next April.”

The budget appeared to contain some genuine good news for lower-paid workers -- the National Living Wage will rise by 4.9% in April 2019, from £7.83 to £8.21 per hour.

Philip Hammond also spoke earnestly about his ambition to end low-pay in the UK.

He didn’t give details, but the OBR suggests this could mean setting the NLW (the minimum wage for over 25s) at two-thirds of median earnings [the current goal is 60% of median earnings by 2020].

But if so, the OBR says this could drive up the jobless rate by 0.4% and put 140,000 people out of work.

This, from the Resolution Foundation, explains the impact of increasing universal credit work allowances by £1,000.

The Treasury publishes a paper on the distributional impact of the budget. But the main charts show the impact of all decisions since autumn 2016/ That means they don’t take into account the welfare cuts worth £12bn announced in 2015, and they don’t show the impact of today’s decision in isolation.

Using this measure, which also takes into account spending on public services, and looking at the impact on household income in relative terms (not in cash terms), the measures have been progressive.

The most important section of the budget red book (pdf) is the scorecard - the bit that tells you how much policy decisions will actually cost in years ahead (listed as spend, and a negative number) and how much they will save the exchequer (listed as tax, and a positive number). This is the chart that shows if decisions that were made to sound significant in the budget speech are actually rather minor in hard cash terms, or vice versa.

Here are the charts.

https://obr.uk/download/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-october-2018/

Here is the page on the Treasury website with links to the budget documents.

Here is the budget red book (pdf) - the main budget document.

And here is the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report (pdf).

My colleague Lisa O’Carroll says the amount of money announced to replicate the work of the European Investment Bank sounds inadequate.

The Office for Budget Responsibility says the UK could have achieved a balanced budget by the middle of the next parliament.... but instead the fiscal windfall has been spent, largely addressing the NHS’s funding crisis.

Here’s the key line:

At first glance the outlook for the public finances in the medium term looks much the same as it did in March. But this masks a significant improvement in the underlying pace of deficit reduction, that on its own would have put the Government on course to achieve its objective of a balanced budget for the first time.

As it happens, this underlying improvement had already been swallowed up by the Prime Minister’s promise of higher spending on the NHS made in June. The remaining Budget policy measures are a further near-term giveaway that gradually diminishes over the forecast, leaving the deficit in 2022-23 little changed overall.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, will respond for the opposition shortly.

We will post highlights from his speech after he has finished.

Hammond says we are at a turning point.

We must build a Britain we can be proud of, he says.

And that’s it.

Hammond turns to the national living wage.

He says the government wants to end low pay.

So it will engage responsibly when making recommendations to the Low Pay Commission, he says.

He will confirm the final remit next year, he says.

“You won’t be here,” an opposition MP says.

Hammond says the MP, a woman, first made that point in 2016.

Coffee companies and fast food chains will be relieved that the government isn’t clamping down on chuck-away cups, even though plastic is now turning up inside our own bodies....

Hammond announces new tax on plastic packaging containing less than 30% recyclable plastic. That will change the dynamics of recycling, he says.

He says he has looked at the case for a tax on plastic cups. He is not convinced it would affect behaviour, he says. But he says he will return to this issue if more progress is not made.

Hammond says he is setting out measures in the red book to improve the environment.

John McDonnell’s recent accident (he fell over some rubbish) showed how dangerous rubbish can be. So he will allocated £10m for waste disposal.

Hammond says tax rates for the oil and gas industries will stay at the same level.

And the government will spend £12m on new technology for the fishing industry, he says.

Hammond says he was pleased to respond to a joint request from three Belfast MPs for more money for the city, to help it recover from a fire.

Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns likes the sound of the budget - and wants constituents to get in touch with any potholes on their road:

A Cones Hotline for the 21st Century?....

Hammond now lists the Barnett consequentials - what Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will get.

Hammond now rattles of a list of minor spending announcements, ending with extra money for the Docklands Light Railway.

Hammond says he is publishing the Oliver Letwin report on housing developers.

It concludes developers are not engaged in land banking, he says.

Hammond says the number of first time buyers is at an 11-year high.

• Hammond announces £500m for housing infrastructure fund.

He says he will empower up to 500 neighbourhoods to buy land for housing for sale to local people in perpetuity.

Hammond announces a business rate relief for public lavatories. For the convenience of the House, he says. He does not want to get “bogged down”, he says.

As MPs object to his jokes, he says at least he is proving he is British.

At least this is the only announcement that has not leaked, he says.

Hammond’s digital services tax sounds like it should snare Facebook and Amazon while allowing smaller UK e-retailers to swim through the, err, net.

If it works, it will bring in enough money to fund the chancellor’s potholes repair bill.

Financial Times editor Lionel Barber is excited:

But the precise details are crucial, as our technology writer Alex Hern explains:

Hammond says technological change will bring challenges and opportunities.

High streets are confronting that challenge in spades.

Britain adopts online shopping with more alacrity than any other major economy, he says.

He says he will consult on how modernisation of planning rules can facilitate the transformation of the high street.

He says he has already introduced business rates relief measures worth £12bn.

At the next revaluation, in 2021, there will be a re-adjustment. But business rates will be cut by one third for firms with a rateable value of less than £51,000.

He says he will also extend the local newspaper discount.

Hammond says Labour talks tough on tax avoidance and evasion. The government takes action, he says.

Refusing to sign any more PFI deals is a good headline - and probably popular, given the mess created by the collapse of Carillion in January.

Former Treasury advisor Rupert Harrison points out that it’s also an easy win for Hammond.

Hammond says he will extend the rules on IR35 to the private sector, but delay the changes until April 2020, and only apply them to large and medium-sized businesses.

Hammond says he wants to keep private homes out of capital gains tax.

But in some cases this is being abused, and so he will change the rules with regard to lettings.

He says he has been encouraged to scrap entrepreneurs’ relief.

He won’t, he says. But he will extend the qualifying period from 12 months to two years.

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary is unimpressed that potholes are getting more money than pupils:

This is from the Resolution Foundation’s Matt Whittaker.

Hammond says visitors from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan will be able to use the gates at Heathrow for EEA citizens with smart passports.

Hammond says he is increasing the annual investment allowance.

Hammond says Britain can lead the world as we exploit a new wave of scientific discovery.

We can solve the productivity challenge if we embrace the future, he says.

He says the details will be in the red book. In the past he set out too much detail, he says.

But he says the list includes £1.6bn in new investments for the modern industrial strategy, and £150m for fellowships to attract the brightest talent to this world.

Total public investment will be £460m a week higher in real terms than under Labour, he says.

The new £650m funding for social care is desperately needed - it’s an area that politicians have failed to tackle properly for years.

This is from Paul Johnson, director of the IFS.

• Hammond says £420m being made available immediately to help council tackle pot holes.

• Hammond announces £400m fund to help schools buy the extras that they need.

• Hammond announces £10m of funding for air ambulance services.

Hammond says many projects raise money for veterans’ charities. VAT is charged on these sales. VAT cannot be waived. But the Treasury can make a donation with this money.

• Hammond says Treasury will donate £10m to help veterans with mental health needs.

• Hammond announced £1.7m to be spent educating schools about the liberation of the Belsen-Bergen concentration camp.

Hammond turns to counter-terrorism. Today he will spend an extra £160m on CT funding in 2019/20.

He says he recognises that policing generally is under pressure.

Many MPs have made representations on this.

Sajid Javid, the home secretary, will review police spending power when he announces the police settlement in December.

Hammond turns to defence.

This year we have had reminders of the threats we face, he says.

A review is looking at defence needs.

• Hammond announces an extra £1bn for the MoD for this year and next.

It will fund, among other things, the continuous at-sea deterrence. This is something Jeremy Corbyn has spent his life trying to abolish, he says.

Hammond says in some areas he will announce extra money for departments now.

This budget will give more money to councils, he says.

They will be able to get more money from the social care precept.

A green paper on the future of social care will soon be published, he says.

But councils face immediate problems. So today he will make £650m available for English councils in 2019/20.

And £84m will be invested over five years to expand programmes for children in care.

Hammond says some of the “bunnies” in his hat have escaped early; in June the PM announced extra money for the NHS.

He describes it as a £25bn real terms increase for the NHS.

(That must be a UK figure, not an England-only figure, as the £20bn one is.)

He says the government has insisted on reforms too.

The NHS will soon publish a plan for reform.

But he can give some details now.

The NHS 10-year plan will include a new NHS crisis service, he says. Children and young people’s crisis teams will be available in all parts of the country.

Hammond says the OBR confirms a “significant improvement” in the public finances.

So he can set out a new path for public spending, he says.

Next year there will be a full spending review, he says.

Today he has set out a five-year path for additional departmental spending.

In 2015 real growth was negative.

Next year it will be positive, he says.

And he claims the “deal dividend” will provide even more money for departments.

The hard work of the British people is paying off. Austerity is coming to an end.

This is from the Resolution Foundation’s Torsten Bell.

Labour would increase tax and spending to over £1 trillion, he says.

That’s is a reckless policy from a reckless party.

“Fiscal Phil says fiscal rules okay,” he jokes.

Hammond turns to borrowing.

He says the deficit is due to fall from 10% under Labour to less than 1.4% next year, falling to 0.8% in 2023/24.

He says borrowing will fall to its lowest structural level for 20 years.

So he will meet his borrowing target three years early, he says.

He says the government will no longer borrowing for current spending.

Hammond says the OBR is forecasting sustained real wages growth in each of the next five years.

Hammond turns to the OBR’s growth forecasts.

Hammond has given himself some wiggle-room, by saying that the era of austerity is ‘coming to an end’.

But still, he must announce some significant new spending, or the claim will fall flat.

Hammond says we are at a “pivotal moment” in the Brexit talks.

If we get it right, there will be a “double Brexit dividend”.

More investment, currently on hold, will come on stream, he says. And the Treasury wil now longer have to hold back money.

He says he is increasing the amount of spending for no deal planing to £2bn.

He will retain borrowing headroom, so he has the fiscal firepower to use if it is needed.

And, if necessary, he will upgrade the spring statement to a full budget.

Hammond says the UK will build a new future outside the EU.

He pays tribute to the British people for “clearing up the aftermath of Labour’s great recession”.

We have had eight years of economic growth, he says. There is higher employment and lower unemployment in every region. Income inequality is lower than under Labour. The economy is back on its feet, he says. And the economy is working for everyone.

Hammond says the last budget on a Monday was in 1962. A foreign secretary turned chancellor was delivering it. It was a time of tension between Russia and the west.

He was six at the time, he says, but he jokes about remembering his parent say that could be him.

Hammond says this budget will see the efforts of the British people finally paying off.

It is a budget for people far away from this place, the “strivers, the grafters and the carers who are the backbone of our communities and our economy”.

They want us to minimise the amount of tax we take, he says.

He says the Tories are proud to represent them. This budget is for you, he tells them.

The Treasury team are squeezing onto the front bench, ready for the off...

Labour is complaining that it has not received the usual redacted advance copy of the budget speech.

The Evening Standard’s Joe Murphy says Philip Hammond will announce an extra £160m for counter-terrorism policing.

The House of Commons chamber has filled up ahead of the chancellor’s speech....

This is from the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn.

The pound has lost a little ground against the US dollar today, down 0.2% at $1.2805, as City traders await the budget.

Last week it hit a seven-week low, and it could drop sharply if Hammond’s speech alarms the City, according to analyst Ranko Berich of Monex Europe.

The BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, says we should keep the significance of today in proportion.

Joel Hills of ITV News points out that the Conservative Party’s 2017 manifesto included a commitment to balancing the budget by the middle of the next decade.

So Hammond can’t simply ignore that goal, without being accused of misleading the voters:

Ipsos MORI has released its latest monthly Political Monitor polling (pdf). It includes this chart, suggesting that two thirds of voters say they support more spending on government services, even if that means higher taxes.

Philip Hammond, the chancellor, is said to be one of the (probably many) Tory MPs who believe that poll findings like this are unreliable, and that, faced with having to pay more in tax, people may feel differently.

Another chart suggests that confidence in Theresa May getting a good Brexit deal is at an all-time low.

Philip Hammond has emerged from 11 Downing Street for the traditional photoshoot.

He’s accompanied by some of his top Treasury ministers.

The chancellor looks quite cheerful as he holds up the red box, but doesn’t answer any shouted questions [He’ll be aware that Hugh Dalton had to resign as chancellor in 1947 after telling a journalist about tax changes in his budget].

Hammond is now making the short drive to the House of Commons, ready to deliver his speech in 30 minutes time.

Philip Hammond may outline plans for a digital sales tax in today’s budget, which would aim to raise more tax from technology companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Google.

Ideally the UK would like an international deal, but the chancellor could signal that he’d go it alone otherwise.

Alex Cobham, the chief executive of Tax Justice, has tweeted a chart showing how online shopping groups are taxed much more lightly than traditional retailers:

This is from Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminister.

This is from the BBC’s Nick Eardley.

Here is a Twitter thread from Sky’s economics editor, Ed Conway, on what to look out for in the budget.

Labour’s shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has seized on the apparent disagreement between Theresa May and Philip Hammond over whether today’s budget will need rewriting if Britain doesn’t agree a Brexit deal with the EU.

McDonnell tweeted:

“What is going on? The PM and The Chancellor contradicting each other. On the day of the budget. We’ve never seen anything like this.”

Helen Miller from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has got five charts which she says explain the background to the budget.

Philip Hammond’s allies are complaining that Theresa May has “spent his money before he stands up”, Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt reports in a blog here. Watt explains:

Friends of Philip Hammond complain that the prime minister has behaved in an “outrageous” way by spending £95bn before he even stands up this afternoon. One ally told me: “It is outrageous. The prime minister has spent his money before he stands up.”

The £95bn is understood to refer to the “scoring” in the Treasury red book for the spending commitments that will be fully outlined by the chancellor in his spending round next year. The extra spending on the NHS is understood to account for £83bn of the £95bn. These sums will cover the period from 2020 to 2023.

Political satire artist Kaya Mar has produces a new painting to mark today’s budget (a habit hat’s becoming as traditional as the red box itself).

This year’s effort suggests a Hammond will unleash a flood of carrots on the nation.....

Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem MP who was mental health minister in the coalition government, is not impressed by the extra spending on mental health in the budget, worth an extra £2bn in real terms by 2023/24. In a statement he said:

For all the government’s spin, this £2bn falls well short of the amount experts say is needed to deliver vital improvements to services and achieve real equality between mental and physical health.

Today’s announcement also recycles commitments set out in the coalition government’s blueprint for children’s mental health, which pledged a named mental health lead in schools as well as a dedicated professional in specialist NHS services. The Conservatives have failed to drive these changes through nearly five years on. Why should we expect things will be any different this time around?

Philip Hammond got a significant boost earlier this month when Britain’s fiscal watchdog reported that tax receipts were rather stronger than it expected this year.

That means a £13bn increase to Hammond’s fiscal firepower, which could help fund some spending for the NHS, or fix some of the problems with the benefits system.

But as we explained a few minutes ago, this isn’t enough to end austerity on its own.

So City economists will be scrutinising today’s budget to see whether Hammond is still committed to eliminating the budget deficit by the mid-2020s, or whether he decides to take the brakes off public borrowing.

More borrowing would risk breaching the government’s goal of eliminating the deficit by the mid-2020s, which was already looking challenging.

This chart from Resolution shows how tough it will be to achieve a balanced budget, even 15 years after the financial crisis:

Here is Damian McBride, a Labour adviser and a former head of communications at the Treasury, on the gap between what No 10 and No 11 are saying on the impact of Brexit on the government’s economic plans. (See 11.52am.)

There were reports earlier this month that Northern Ireland’s DUP party could break their ‘confidence and supply’ deal with Theresa May and vote against the budget -- which might bring down the government.

DUP spokesman Sammy Wilson has told the BBC that his party isn’t planning to oppose the budget...simply because it doesn’t know the details of Britain’s withdrawal agreement with Europe.

But the threat is still hanging over the government.

Wilson says:

To date we haven’t seen the outcome of the withdrawal agreement so it would be reckless of us to oppose the budget on the basis of something we haven’t seen.

However, the government will need support when it comes to the finance bill, which implements the measures in the budget, when it comes to legislation for universal credit and a whole lot of other domestic legislation.

So they shouldn’t take it for granted that just because they get the budget passed that they can do whatever they like with Northern Ireland.

Given what Theresa May said at her party conference speech, today’s budget may well be judged by whether or not it supports claims that austerity is ending.

For reference, it is worth pointing out that the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation, the two thinktanks that take the lead in budget analysis, have both produced reports addressing this - but coming to different conclusions.

In its green budget, summarised here (pdf), the IFS says ending austerity would cost an extra £19bn by 2022/23 at a minimum. It says:

On the narrowest possible definition, ‘ending austerity’, as the prime minister has promised, would require the chancellor to find £19bn of additional public service spending relative to current plans by 2022–23. That would leave unprotected day-to-day departmental spending just constant in real terms, and falling as a share of national income. It would still leave in place £7bn of further cuts to social security.

But the Resolution Foundation, in its own pre-budget briefing, puts the price tag for ending austerity at £31bn. It says:

An ‘end-of-austerity’ package that ensures that no department need face any further cuts in real-terms per capita spending beyond 2019-20, alongside cancelling the final year of the four-year benefit freeze and re-investing in the work allowances that underpin the new universal credit (UC) system would cost around £31bn in 2022-23. The chancellor could just about deliver that sum by making full use of his new higher borrowing headroom, but in doing so he would fall foul of his own debt rule. With so much uncertainty around, and an ongoing determination to lower debt relative to GDP, he will want to follow a more modest borrowing path. To square the circle, he will almost certainly need to raise some tax revenues – even if not at this budget.

Had the 2016 EU referendum turned out differently, George Osborne could possibly be delivering today’s speech.

Instead, the former chancellor-turned-editor has been working on his front page at the Evening Standard:

It’s a good headline, but slightly misleading. Angela Merkel is stepping aside as leader of her CDU party, but hopes to stay on as German chancellor until 2021 (so she could still outlast Theresa May).

And while we’re on the subject of the Brexit 50p coin, it is worth pointing out that the Sun, which broke the story, describes this as a significant announcement in its leader column. “Never can a budget announcement over 50p have been so warmly welcomed,” it says. The editorial also uses this as an opportunity to renew criticism of the Royal Mail for not issuing Brexit stamps (“first-class buffoonery”), despite remainer suspicions that in fact that the Royal Mail has surreptitiously done exactly that.

We’ve already covered the news that Philip Hammond plans to announce a special Brexit 50p coin. (See 11.03am.) This morning the European commission has confirmed that there are no plans for a euro equivalent. Asked if there would be a new euro coin marking Brexit, a commission spokesman said: “We have no current plans to do anything of the sort.”

Rupert Harrison, who was chief of staff to George Osborne when Osborne was chancellor, thinks it was a mistake for Theresa May to promise an end to austerity in her conference speech.

One of May’s first acts as PM, of course, was to sack Osborne.

Jonathan Portes, professor of economics at Kings College London and a former government economist, says the No 10 use of the word “funded” at the lobby briefing (see 11.52am) is misleading.

Twitter wits are in overdrive this morning, following the news that Hammond will announce a new 50p Brexit coin today.

According to The Sun, the new coin will be minted to mark Brexit Day (29 March 2019). It will bear the cheery motto “Friendship with all nations.”

Scholars among you will know that the full quote, from US president Thomas Jefferson, reads:

“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none”.

A lot of people are making the same joke -- that this is actually the new Brexit quid.

Streeting has a point, though. After plunging after the referendum, sterling is still down around 13% against both the dollar and the euro. The 50p in your pocket has been devalued by the Brexit vote (and it could fall further in a no-deal scenario).

Remain supporters are suggesting alternative designs. For example:

The Daily Mash reckons these coins could be handy, even if the sunlit uplands of Brexit turn cloudy:

There is precedent for the Brexit coin, though. Back in 1973, Britain minted a new 50p with a ring of hands, to show European integration and friendship when it joined the EEC. At least Hammond’s new design doesn’t give Europe the finger...

When Philip Hammond was photographed yesterday working on his budget speech, he was drinking from a personalised mug.

According to Will Tanner, a former No 10 aide, every cabinet minister gets sent one by a designer.

The Commons home affairs committee has published a very short report today criticising Sajid Javid, the home secretary, for not responding properly to a report it published on migration options from the European Economic Area. It says:

We are particularly concerned that the government has shown so little inclination to engage with scrutiny of its preparations for Brexit. We have previously written to the Home Office about the government’s dilatory approach to our work on UK-EU security co-operation after Brexit: in that instance it took more than five months for the government to reply to our report of 21 March. Having initially sought to avoid responding to our migration report, the government response in this instance is derisory. As the UK’s withdrawal from the EU approaches, the Home Office has not shown us that it feels any urgency about addressing these challenges at all.

Liz Truss, chief secretary to the Treasury, has been dosing up on strong coffee to get her through the day.

Hopefully this doesn’t mean the Budget is boring....

Philip Hammond may need a few espressos too, after staying up late to finish the speech:

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, also told the Today programme that, if there is a Brexit deal, there will be a “Brexit dividend” for the economy, my colleague Peter Walker reports. Hancock said:

I think that we are en route to getting a good deal. I also think that if we get a good deal then we’re going to get a boost from that – there’s going to be a deal dividend.

I talk to companies every day that are ready to make investments in the UK and they want the uncertainty of these negotiations cleared before they will make those investments. So actually I think there’s potential good news on the horizon as we make a deal with the EU.

Here is the full story.

Good morning. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, will deliver his third budget this afternoon. These statements are supposed to be one of the decisive political events of the year. But it doesn’t feel like that today because even an announcement about how the government will raise and spend the £800bn or so it needs every year somehow seems second order compared to Brexit, a policy black hole whose gravitational pull is so enormous that it overwhelms almost everything else in Whitehall.

Hammond more or less admitted that yesterday. In interviews he conceded that today’s will in many respects just be a provisional budget, and that if the UK fails to secure a Brexit deal with the EU, he will have to rip it up and come back to the Commons with an alternative.

Hammond also said yesterday that the biggest spending decision in the budget has already been made. It came when Theresa May announced extra spending for the NHS in the summer, leading to real terms spending on it in England rising by £20bn a year by 2023/24. On the Today programme this morning Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that at least this commitment was Brexit-proof. He told the programme:

The extra £20bn for the NHS is coming. We’ll see it in the figures today and that is irrespective of the deal that we get on Brexit.

Here is our overnight budget preview story.

And here is a guide to what to expect.

I’m Andrew Sparrow and, as usual on budget day, I’ll be covering the statement and providing reaction, analysis and a focus on what’s in the budget small print with my colleague Graeme Wearden.

Normally the budget is at 12.30pm on a Wednesday. But Hammond reportedly decided to hold it on a Monday this week so as to avoid clashing with Halloween and as a result we won’t get the speech until 3.30pm, because the Commons starts late on a Monday. That means that journalists will have three hours less than usual to unpick it before tomorrow’s newspapers go to print.

Here are the key timings for today.

11am: Downing Street briefing.

12.30pm: Hammond briefs the cabinet on his budget.

3.30pm: Hammond delivers the budget in the Commons.

If you want to follow us or contact us on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow and Graeme is on @graemewearden.