* Thresholds for stamp duty double to £120,000.

* Pensioners to get council tax refund of £200, free local bus travel everywhere from next year and a rise in pension credit to 13 per cent by 2008.

* The £260,000 inheritance tax threshold rises to £275,000 this year and then £300,000.

* Child tax credit to rise by 13 per cent over the next three years and child benefit rises to £17 per week for the first child and £11.40 for each child thereafter.

* Personal income tax allowance to rise with inflation.

* A pack of cigarettes goes up 7 pence.

* Duty on beer, up a penny; on a bottle of wine 4 pence; but no rise for cider, sparkling wine and spirits.

* £650 million allocated for primary school rebuilding programme over the next five years with a further £1.5 billion earmarked to revamp further education colleges over the same period.

* Red tape will be tackled by combining 35 government agencies into five and by setting targets for cutting bureaucracy in every Government department every year.

* Single parents will get £2,000 return-to-work bonuses from next month.