Walls close in for Rachel Reeves as borrowing shoots up March 21, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s headroom is shrinking as government borrowing in February exceeded the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) prediction, new data showed. Reeves has insisted that financial prudence is key to the government’s economic agenda. But the latest data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests she has less headroom than expected. The [...]
Jeremy Hunt: OBR ‘overly exaggerated’ Brexit impact March 19, 2025 Former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has criticised the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) for making “overly exaggerated” claims about Brexit’s impact on the economy. The OBR released a series of gloomy predictions in recent years claiming that Brexit had stifled growth and wrecked trade. But Hunt has claimed that leaving the European Union has in fact [...]
Chancellor facing £10bn headache in Spring Statement March 6, 2025 Rachel Reeves faces a tax and spend nightmare at the Spring Statement, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank. In a lengthy report, the IFS says Reeves is snookered between the realities of a bleak economic environment and her own self-imposed fiscal rules, resulting in what could amount to a £10bn tax [...]
Chancellor lining up billions in spending cuts as fiscal headroom wiped out March 5, 2025 The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is preparing to announce “major measures” including substantial spending cuts to a number of government departments – including welfare – in the Spring Statement. According to BBC News, sources said that “the world has changed” since the Budget, and that £9.9bn in fiscal headroom projected by the Office for Budget Responsibility [...]
Tax or cut? Rachel Reeves faces fiscal headache before OBR forecasts February 5, 2025 The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will publish its latest assessment of the UK economy on 26 March.
Further tax rises ‘a good bet’ after Chancellor’s borrowing blow January 22, 2025 Borrowing in the month of December was at its third highest level since monthly records began back in 1997, excluding only the pandemic and 2009.
Reeves ‘will be forced to hold Spring Budget’ to settle gilt jitters, Abrdn predicts January 9, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be forced to hold a spring Budget this year to rein in government spending and settle investors’ nerves, after the cost of government borrowing hit multi-decade highs this week, Abrdn has predicted. Despite ministers insisting the gilt market was functioning in an “orderly” way and no emergency measures would be taken, [...]