NEIL Plews, a credit risk analyst and father-of-one, said there was "nothing that jumped out" of the Budget from a family's perspective.

"Any increase in the savings allowance is of benefit," he said. "For me, that first £1,000 of interest on savings tax-free would probably encourage people to look at different types of savings rather than just ISAs.

"So whereas before you might have been put off going for something with a better interest rate because you were going to incur some tax, now with the tax-free interest threshold that would encourage more people to save using more more diverse products, which is a good thing."

The 36-year-old, who lives in Linlithgow with wife Rhianon, an HR manager, and their son, Struan, 10 months, added: "There were the key points around increases in personal tax allowance over the next couple of years, but if you actually look at that in itself it's about a two per cent increase to take it up to £11,000. That's in line with the Government's inflation target anyway, so it's a net gain in real terms. It's not as good as you might think.

"There was also the increase in the higher rate threshold which is great if your income is in that bracket, but not if it isn't. It will affect [my wife] Rhianon, but not myself at the moment.

"The key thing for me is that the Chancellor said, over the last five years, households are about £900 better off - I don't see that. I'm really not sure where my £900 went.

"There were a lot of nice soundbites within the Budget, but from a nuts and bolts point of view in terms of what we take home every month I don't see it having a material effect.

"There was a petrol duty freeze, which is good - but the duty itself still makes up such a sizeable proportion of the overall price at the pump that I think there's plenty of people who would say 'how can you justify the duty?'. It's very good that it's been frozen but like all these things, like a penny of a pint, are you really going to notice it?"