The recently-introduced Lifetime ISA will continue despite calls for it to be axed due to poor take up.

In other savings moves, the Treasury confirmed that the starting rate for savings (the band of savings income  subject to the 0% starting rate) will be kept at its current level of £5,000 for 2019-20.

On pensions, as expected, the lifetime allowance (LTA) for pensions will increase in line with CPI for 2019-20, rising to £1,055,000.

The government has continued its policy of cracking down on tax evasion and artificial measures to avoid tax.

The Treasury says the government “remains committed to tackling tax avoidance and evasion, aggressive tax planning and non-compliance”

Since 2010 the government has secured and protected over £185 billion of tax that would otherwise have gone unpaid, and introduced over 100 measures to crack down further on avoidance, evasion, aggressive tax planning and unfair outcomes, it says.

New measures were announced to crack down on misuse of Entrepreneurs’ Relief , UK businesses avoiding UK tax by arranging for their UK-taxable business profits to accrue to entities resident in territories where significantly lower tax is paid than in the UK.

In terms of offshore tax compliance strategy the government will publish an updated offshore tax compliance strategy, it says.