Osborne freezes carbon tax
The chancellor has announced a freeze in the carbon price floor. Carbon will cost £18 per tonne from 2016 for the rest of the decade. Measures in the budget taken to bring down cost of energy amount to £7bn.
This will be welcome to energy intensive industries that have been hardest hit by the rising cost of energy compared to US and EU competitors.
The chancellor also said he would support the shale gas revolution.
In January, the boss of Tata Steel Europe argued that revitalising energy intensive industries could play a major part in rebalancing of the UK economy.
The comments came in the wake of a PwC report highlighting the benefits of so-called foundation industries such as metals, chemicals and cement. The report showed how these sectors had suffered since the financial crisis shrinking by as much as a quarter.
These foundation industries employ close to half a million people in the UK and accounted for 30 per cent of total exports in 2012, with turnover close to £69bn.
Read our full summary of the budget here.