Chancellor George Osborne's Budget decisions were given a roasting by opposition MPs yesterday for failing to offer help to ordinary people.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls savaged David Cameron, joking that the old Etonian had mistakenly backed the Budget because he thought it would give old school chum "Bingo" a tax cut.

The shadow chancellor poked fun as he criticised the Budget for failing to tackle the cost of living crisis and cited several Labour proposals that could have helped struggling people, but were ignored.

These included an energy price freeze, a 10p starting rate of tax, an extension of free childcare to 25 hours a week for working parents and a cut in business rates for small firms.

Mr Balls dismissed the coalition's proposed increase in tax free savings from £5,500 to £15,000.

He told MPs: "The 'Budget for savers' has savings falling every year in the next five years, each of these figures revised down by the Office for Budget Responsibility in the latest forecasts.

"The fact is, what we desperately needed was a Budget that would deliver for the many and not just a few at the top."

Makerfield Labour MP Yvonne Fovargue also rubbished the Chancellor's logic, pointing out that eight million people in Britain have no savings at all.

"They are indeed the makers and doers referred to by the Chancellor, but they're just making do, juggling their finances with no spare money to save for a rainy day," she said.

Labour's Geoffrey Robinson cautiously welcomed the increase in income tax allowance to £10,500 but warned the Budget "does absolutely nothing for the millions who are paying no tax at all."

The veteran MP also took the Tories to task for trumpeting increased employment in the face of falling productivity.

He told the house: "Where output is relative to employment we have suffered a dramatic loss of the productive capacity of the economy and the productivity of the labour force.

"There's nothing in the Budget at all to address a central issue that will underpin, sustain and increase our recovery."