In this year's Budget Alistair Darling has set out the next steps in the Government's plan to secure the economic recovery and build strong, sustainable growth.

You can read the Budget in full here

Growth and Jobs

Labour has taken unprecedented action to support the economy, businesses and families through the deepest global recession for more than 60 years. Withdrawing this support too soon would put the recovery at risk. Because of this, Labour are using today’s budget to continue to help get people back into work, and get our economy growing by supporting investment in our national infrastructure.

• We’re extending the Young Person’s Guarantee after March 2011, to ensure that young people continue to be guaranteed a job, training or work experience if they cannot find work within six months
• We’re funding 20,000 extra undergraduate places on courses starting in 2010-11
• We’ll grant Working Tax Credit to people over 60, working at least 16 hours per week
• And Labour are investing in Britain’s 21st century infrastructure by creating a Green Investment Bank that will support low-carbon projects
• We can offer a hand up to first time buyers with a two year stamp duty holiday on transactions up to £250,000
• Give us all the right to a basic bank account so that everyone can manage their finances
• From April 2010, we’ll make additional annual payments of £100 into the Child Trust Fund accounts of disabled children. Severely disabled children will receive £200 per year
• And we’ll bring in a 2.5% increase in the basic State Pension from April 2010, benefiting over 12 million pensioners

Halving the deficit

Today Labour has shown it is the only party in British politics with a clear and detailed plan to halve the deficit. And we will do this while protecting key frontline services. We can be confident that we’re making the right choices because the action we took throughout the downturn has worked: Unemployment is 2% lower than the Euro area and the US while borrowing this year is £11bn less than we forecast. But we’re going further in order to get the deficit down.

• We’re going to bear down on waste, and make real and lasting changes to make government more efficient saving £11bn
• We’ll reduce the costs of public sector pay and pensions allowing us to save £4.4bn to get the deficit down
• And we’re making tough choices across Whitehall to cut £5bn from low priority programmes so we can continue to support those frontline services which people really rely on 

And we've continued our commitment to fairness by making sure that 60% of all tax rises this year are paid by the wealthiest 5% of society.

The risk to the economy from the Conservatives

David Cameron and George Osborne would put the recovery at risk by cutting support to the economy now. They refuse to match Labour’s commitment to protect frontline services; and they would hit families on middle and modest incomes while pledging a £200,000 giveaway to the 3,000 wealthiest estates.

Read more about the conservative risk to the economy