Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has delivered a defiantly upbeat budget offering a £9bn tax break for business, the Financial Times says.

The paper says a £9bn tax break for business, the expansion of free childcare for under-threes and the surprise abolition of the £1m cap on tax-free pension contributions made for a “defiantly upbeat Budget”. 

The paper says Mr Hunt welcomed forecasts suggesting the UK was to avoid a recession by telling the Commons the “declinists are wrong”, though it also quotes Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer calling the new pensions tax break a “huge giveaway to some of the wealthiest people in the country”.