UK Chancellor John Healey has officially confirmed date for his first Autumn budget to be delivered on Wednesday, 28 October.
As reported by the Guardian, Britain’s finance minister Healey stated that the budget will focus heavily on fiscal discipline, adhering to government fiscal rules.
The date was announced via a letter to the Treasury Committee and a concurrent video message, marking the official kickoff for the upcoming fiscal planning cycle under Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government.
“This will be a budget that moves money and power out of Westminster, and into every postcode around Britain…”It will be built on fiscal discipline. It will meet our fiscal rules,” said Healey in a statement.
Set for late October, the statement arrives nearly a month earlier than the previous year’s autumn budget, giving the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) its formal window to review forecasts and assess whether government spending plans align with its mandated targets.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who moved into Downing Street less than two weeks ago, has also said he will honour the fiscal rules which include a pledge to balance day-to-day spending with tax revenues by the end of the decade.
Economists say the government has only a small margin of error for hitting that target and some of Burnham’s policy priorities—such as extra defence spending and better social care—will put more strain on the public finances.
Burnham has said that meeting the fiscal rules might mean “having to ask for a little more” on tax although he has also pledged to stick with promises made by previous prime minister Keir Starmer not to raise the main rates of taxation.
