SINGLE mum Marie Vickers had a mixed view on the budget.

Marie, 29, lives with her mum and daughter Grace, two, in Poulner, near Ringwood.

She has just set up her own cake business and currently relies completely on benefits.

She said: “My income is very low to having to pay less tax on the rest of it will help me a lot. The child benefit is not going to affect me at the moment.

“If road tax is going to go up, I’m running a car on a very low wage so that will affect me. But hopefully it will balance out.”

PENSIONER Alan Jones, 72, who lives with his wife in the New Forest, said although he personally is no better off as a result of the budget, he thinks overall it is fair.

"Age related income tax allowances for people aged 65 plus are an anomaly anyway, so I can understand why they have been frozen. For everyone else, higher personal allowances will put more pounds in people’s pockets, which means they have more to spend on the High Street, and generates more jobs.

“Although there is no fuel duty cut and car tax will rise with inflation I think encouraging people to drive more fuel efficient vehicles is a good thing. We traded our BMW for a Kia Cee’d Economy last year”.

DAD-of-two Kevin Forbes, from Ensbury Park, said the budget was “low key”.

Kevin, a 43-year-old independent financial advisor, added: “It was a fairly low key budget for households. The raising of the personal allowance will help every family out, so that’s a positive thing and will encourage people to go to work.

“I think it’s fairer to work out the child tax benefit per household rather than just one high-rate tax payer. We will lose it either way, but I think that’s a fairer way to do it