Jeremy Hunt reveals date of next Budget

Jeremy Hunt will set out his next Budget on 22 November, the chancellor has told MPs.

He has commissioned an Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast, which will be presented alongside the Autumn Statement.

The lack of an OBR forecast at his predecessor’s mini-budget last September spooked the markets and sparked a huge economic fallout, pushing up government borrowing costs and putting certain pension funds on the brink of collapse.

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Mr Hunt was drafted in to clean up the mess and retained his position after ex-prime minister Liz Truss resigned just 44 days into her premiership.

Since then he and Rishi Sunak have made it their mission to halve inflation, amid a series of Bank of England interest rate rises.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Hunt insisted progress was being made as inflation is nearly 40% below its 11% peak.

Confirming the new Budget date, he said: “On Friday, the Office for National Statistics published an update to the UK’s GDP growth figures which shows the UK economy was 0.6% larger than pre-pandemic levels by the fourth quarter of 2021.

“It means our economy had the fastest recovery from the pandemic of any large European economy, thanks to decisions such as furlough that protected millions of jobs.

“For that growth to continue we now need to halve inflation, which I am pleased to report is now nearly 40% below its 11% peak. I can also tell the House I will deliver the Autumn Statement on November 22.”

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Mr Hunt is likely to face pressure from Tory MPs to commit to tax cuts ahead of the next general election, as the party languishes behind Labour in the polls.

The Spring Budget in March – which handed a tax cut to wealthy pensioners – led to warnings that people will be hit with the biggest fall in living standards since records began.

Mr Hunt, pressed over lowering taxes, told Treasury questions that “as a Conservative I want to bring taxes down as soon as we can afford to do so”.

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The Treasury and new Defence Secretary Grant Shapps are also likely to come under pressure over defence funding.

Mr Shapps’s predecessor, Ben Wallace, who stepped down from the role last week, had long made clear his desire for greater spending on the UK armed forces.

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