With VAT on domestic fuel to be raised from April 1994, he outlined details of some Social Security benefits designed to offset the impact of the increase in costs for heating and lighting.

Having served as Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke was appointed to the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer in May 1993, replacing Norman Lamont, who had delivered the previous budget in March.

The government also decided to move the date of the budget from the spring to the autumn, as it would enable both its spending and taxation programmes to be outlined at the same time.

In the lead up to the statement there was media speculation that VAT would be added to the cost of purchasing books and newspapers, but in the week before Clarke was due to deliver his first budget, Prime Minister John Major had dinner with news publisher Rupert Murdoch, something that later raised eyebrows when the measure was not included.

[4] Many of the measures outlined in November 1993 were following through with decisions that had been made in the previous budget, with the chancellor unveiling a programme of tax increases and spending cuts designed to raise £10.5bn[a] over three years.

[4] Three new private finance initiative-funded projects were given the go-ahead – the extension of the Docklands Light Railway to Lewisham, a new Air Traffic Control centre for Scotland, and an upgrade of the West Coast Main Line.

[1][3] The chancellor said that he had no intention of asking Parliament to change VAT on domestic fuel plans, and forecast that it would raise £3bn[g] in 1994, and enable UK carbon emissions to be reduced to their 1990 levels by the end of the decade.

"[4] Responding to the statement, John Smith, leader of the Labour Party and the Opposition, described it as "odious in the extreme" and dismissed some of the Social Security measures, particularly those relating to Statutory Sick Pay, as a "vicious attack on the welfare state".

This makes it is hard for anyone under 44 to get steamed up, even though they should, for it is major piece of social engineering that will affect their plans for their entire life.

"[5] Outside politics, the budget had a more positive reception from the City of London, with stock market prices rising sharply in its wake.