The Chancellor George Osborne called for continued support of the Government’s economic plans as he revealed strong economic recovery from the 2007 recession.

The Chancellor announced in his address to the Commons that the UK economy increased at a faster rate than any other major European country, but that Britain could not afford to relax in carrying forward cost cutting measures and long term sustainability goals.

The Chancellor detailed the state of Britain’s finances and revealed changes to pensions, energy bills, property taxes, new funding for businesses and a range of other measures designed to support the UK’s continued growth in order to reduce historic debt.

Key economic pledges and achievements included:

Developing the UK economy:

• Achieving growth that outpaced all other major European economic nations

• On track to meet targets one year ahead of schedule by achieving no deficits by 2019

A focus on developing the UK infrastructure:

• Support of shale gas as an energy source including tax breaks for energy companies

• Plans for £375bn of investment in energy, transport, communications, and water projects

• Development of HS2

• Supporting housing construction with a billion pounds in loans

Reducing unemployment:

• Achieving the lowest proportion of unemployed households in 17 years

• The creation of 400,000 new jobs , 2 million more jobs than in 2010

• Ending job taxes on those aged under 21

• Developing skills through better and offering frees school meals in reception, year 1 and year 2

• The Government will increase funding to Job Centre plus to help 16 and 17 year olds

The Chancellor announced that the Government will be freezing fuel duty prices throughout 2014 and will seek to help small and medium size companies by extending the availability of business loans. The Government will seek to keep Britain globally completive by keeping business taxes low and will seek to bring industry investment to Britain by offering film, theatre and social enterprise tax subsidies.

The Autumn Statement reflects the Chancellors strategy to keep the British economy growing, with the better than expected performance not being used to ease cuts, but instead being used to drive growth and reduce overall debt. Despite the Chancellor's attempt to display positive economic news, his presentation to the Commons had little effect on the London equity market. The FTSE 100 remained almost unchanged at 6,510 and in the currency markets, the pound stayed in negative territory throughout the statement.