PENSIONER Moira Owen described the Budget as "neutral" seeing little benefit outside a rise in the state pension.

Mrs Owen from Strathaven welcomed news that the pension would rise by three per cent in April 2018 to £125.95.

People covered under the new state pension will see the full level of new state pension increase from £159.55 per week to £164.35 a week.

Annual increases in the state pension are covered by the so-called ‘triple lock guarantee’, which ensures that it rises each year by either September’s Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation figure, average wage growth or 2.5% – whichever is highest.

In this case, the inflation rate of three percent in September 2017 dictated how much the pension would rise by.

"I am pleased that the pension has gone up although it is only really in line with inflation," the grandmother-of-four pointed out. "It will help."

She was pleased that the fuel duty rise for petrol and diesel cars scheduled for April 2018 was scrapped - although she admits that the price of fuel remains too expensive and that she will continue to take the option of a free bus.

"I thought it would go up and petrol is already rising in price anyway, and if it goes up any more it is going to make it difficult to afford to take the car out," she said.

"I am like most pensioners, I take the bus option as much as I can as we have the free bus passes. Days out are a thing of the past where you can take the car out and go a run somewhere. I don't do that because to me it's a waste of petrol and petrol costs a lot of money."

A former smoker she said it was a "good idea" to have the price of tobacco rise by two per cent above the Retail Price Index (RPI) measure of inflation while the minimum excise duty on cigarettes introduced in March will also rise.

But she admitted: "I am a baddie."

And she said she was "disappointed" that there was a freezing of alcohol duty.

"People have to be discouraged from drinking so much, for the sake of the nation's health, really. But that's me being very selfish, really, I suppose," she said.

And she was concerned that was "not a great deal" in the Budget to help the NHS, teachers and the police.

"I care very much about them, and they are massively underfunded. They are not addressing these major issues."