Welcome to The Independent’s Budget liveblog. Join the team from Wednesday morning for live coverage of the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions and Philip Hammond’s Budget shortly after.
The Chancellor will be under an intense amount of both political and financial pressure as he presents his Budget on Wednesday. It comes after the UK’s finances unexpectedly worsened last month after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said public sector net borrowing – stripping out state-owned banks – jumped by £500m to £8bn in October.
And combined with the uncertainty in the economy as Britain’s exit negotiations with the European Union continue, the Chancellor with have little room to manoeuvre on Wednesday – especially as the Government still intends to eliminate the deficit by the next decade.
A series of giveaways have already been trailed by the Treasury, including extending discount railcards to 25-30 year-olds from next Spring and tackling overpayments of student loans. But many Conservative MPs will be looking for a bold vision from the Chancellor.
This is also a Budget in which the Chancellor cannot afford any major slip-ups. Some are nervous of a repeat of the excruciating U-turn on a key announcement in the Budget in Spring. Mr Hammond was forced to pull the plug on his plan to raise taxes for the self-employees through increased national insurance contributions after considerable pressure from Conservative MPs. If there is any repeat of this the Chancellor’s position in Number 11 will be very precarious indeed.
