Jeremy Hunt delays Oct 31 fiscal statement

An Autumn Statement will now take place on November 17
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Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has delayed next Monday’s critical ‘Budget’ as he raced to thrash out the final details of his plan to restore the public finances with new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The Chancellor updated the Cabinet on the timing of the fiscal event. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor agreed that the fiscal event would now take place on the November 17, and would be an Autumn Statement.

Mr Hunt had been expected to set out his ‘Medium Term Fiscal Plan’ on October 31 in a bid to rebuild confidence in the Government’s handling of the economy, after Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget on September 23.

But with Mr Sunak only taking office on Tuesday, the Chancellor announced on Wednesday morning the fiscal event will now be pushed back to give the Prime Minister more time to consider proposed spending cuts and tax rises aimed at plugging a £30-£40billion black hole in the Government’s finances.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly hinted a delay could be coming, insisting the Prime Minister “will want some time with his Chancellor to make sure that the fiscal statement matches his priorities”.

He added on BBC Breakfast: “Obviously the date of that fiscal statement was originally set with no expectation of a change of Prime Minister. We’ve now had a change of Prime Minister.

“Thankfully that’s happened very quickly, because nobody wants uncertainty.

“But the Prime Minister was appointed less than 24 hours ago. He is in the process of forming a Government. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor know they need to work quickly on this but they also want to get it right, so we’ll see what happens to that date.”

The timing of the crucial fiscal event, which - crucially - will be accompanied by an economic forecast by the Government’s independent fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, was discussed at the first meeting of Mr Sunak’s new look Cabinet this morning.

On Tuesday, he entered No10 warning the UK faced a “profound economic crisis”.

He reappointed Mr Hunt as Chancellor after he was brought in by Ms Truss to calm financial markets which were badly rattled by former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s plans for billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts.

Mr Hunt has already reversed £32bn of £45bn of tax cuts announced and cut short the Government’s two year universal energy support package for all households, instead announcing a review which could see the introduction of a more targeted scheme for the most deprived households next April.

But the Chancellor is under pressure to set out how he will repair the public finances and start reducing national debt as a proportion of GDP over the next five years.

Government departments have been braced for swinging cuts to spending while there are reports that Mr Hunt could be weighing more windfall taxes on energy companies and banks.

The case for a windfall tax on banks may have been strengthened on Wednesday after Barclays reported pre-tax profits of £1.97bn in the three months to the end of September - a 6 per cent increase partly driven by rising interest rates.

But financial markets have calmed since Mr Hunt’s appointment on 14 October: UK gilt yields have fallen to levels not seen since before the mini budget while the pound has also recovered against the US dollar.

With markets more stable, economic commentators have argued the need to announce the Government’s medium term fiscal plan before the Bank of England’s next interest rate setting meeting on November 3 may have receded.

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