There has been much commentary about the Budget, which I wrote about in anticipation in last week’s column, before knowing what it contained. So, I write this week to highlight some of the measures which will benefit South Shropshire.

The first is the help to get those not in work back into the workforce. We have low unemployment in Shropshire but growing unfilled vacancies following the pandemic. So, the Chancellor made employment one of the key themes, with a raft of measures to help young and old get back to work.

Extending provision of free childcare over the next 18 months to allow time for providers to grow capacity so that infants from 9 months to 2 years old will be a real help to families.

At the other end of the age scale, getting rid of the pensions tax which meant senior doctors were taxed more than they earned from doing extra shifts will help keep our most experienced doctors from retiring early.

The Chancellor's surprise decision to introduce 100% capital allowances, allowing businesses full expensing of capital expenditure against Corporation Tax, initially for three years, will be a significant boost to investment in IT, plant, and equipment.

Shropshire has over 3,200 miles of roads, one of the largest county networks in England, so will benefit from allocation of the £200 million Potholes Fund. This will help Shropshire Council in its priority to fix poor road surfaces to improve the safety and travel experience for us all.

Freezing fuel duty for another year helps keep fuel costs down. Changing alcohol duties to reduce duty charged on beer, cider and wine consumed in pubs will help our pubs compete against the off trade in supermarkets.

I was pleased to see the Community Renewal Fund receive a £300 million allocation, where I am actively supporting an application from a community group in South Shropshire. I shall also back Shropshire Council's bid for the third round of Levelling Up Funding announced in the Budget.

I was particularly pleased to see in the small print that the Government has allocated £180m compensation tax free to those postmasters who suffered terribly through the Horizon IT debacle, including some here in Shropshire.

The Budget set out the economic challenges we face as a country, post-pandemic and with war at the other end of Europe but provides early evidence that we have avoided recession and the economy is starting to recover.