Healey's first Budget: bank tax rise, energy bill help and a first-home scheme expected on 28 October

At around 12:30 on Wednesday 28 October, Chancellor John Healey will stand up in the Commons to deliver his first Budget. The speech usually runs about an hour and will be broadcast live on BBC iPlayer and the BBC News website. He and Prime Minister Andy Burnham say they want to give households "breathing space" while the cost of living stays high.

Healey has not ruled out some tax rises, which could help pay for support aimed elsewhere. The government has kept a tight lid on the contents beforehand, with few policies leaking, so much of what follows comes from reporting on what is expected rather than from official confirmation.

On housing, the Budget should add detail to Burnham's Your First Home scheme for first-time buyers in England. Buyers of a new-build home would need a deposit of just 2.5% and would receive a loan worth 20% of the property's value. Eligibility would be capped at combined incomes of £110,000 outside London and £140,000 in the capital.

A minimum wage rise will also be announced. The BBC understands that 18- to 20-year-olds will see smaller increases than in previous years. Their pay will rise in line with the rate for workers aged 21 and over. In the previous two years Labour raised the younger rate faster, to meet a manifesto promise to remove "discriminatory age bands".

Energy is the pressure point. Household bills are set to rise by the most in four years in January, with a typical annual bill forecast to climb by £276. Healey has indicated help for households on certain benefits. The government also plans to remove tariffs from 100 food items, which it calculates could save households up to £21 a year, or 40p a week, when combined with tariff suspensions introduced in June. The BBC understands fuel duty will stay frozen, with the 5p cut introduced by Rishi Sunak in 2022 kept in place, as The Sun first reported.

Pensioners who rely only on the state pension are expected to be shielded from income tax through a new personal allowance. The reason is that the full state pension is set to rise to £13,036.40, above the current £12,570 threshold, which would otherwise pull one million people into paying tax on it. Healey will explain how they will be exempted.

To fund some of this, bank bosses told the BBC they expect higher taxes on their sector. One possibility is reversing the Conservative cut to the surcharge on bank profits, which went from 8% to 3%. Another is a higher levy on the size of banks' balance sheets. For business more broadly, The Times reports that online platforms such as Amazon and eBay will be made responsible for collecting tax owed by traders using them. The money is expected to fund cuts to business rates for High Street shops, by raising the threshold at which small firms start paying from £12,000 to £18,000. Support for small breweries is also planned, and Healey has promised to cut "form-filling and pointless paperwork" to save businesses up to £800m.

The backdrop is mixed. Healey has repeatedly praised the UK's resilience: it is the fastest-growing G7 economy this year, and has done better than expected despite energy price shocks from the US-Israel war with Iran. But growth is expected to slow as those costs weigh on households and firms, and inflation reached 3.1% in the year to August, the highest in five months and above the Bank of England's 2% target, driven by petrol and diesel prices.

When Healey sits down, the Office for Budget Responsibility will publish five-year forecasts and judge whether the government is likely to meet its fiscal rules. Markets watch that verdict closely, since it can affect borrowing costs. Kemi Badenoch will respond for the opposition, and MPs will debate the measures for three days before voting. Tax changes can take effect immediately if approved, but a finance bill is needed to make them permanent.