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By my tally there have been at least 15 different parts of the budget trailed in advance of Wednesday’s speech by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, from a boost in transport spending outside London to minimum wage rises to skills spending.
This upset Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle who admonished ministers for making budget announcements in newspapers and on “Sky TV” rather than delivering them to MPs first.
Yes, this was a breach of parliamentary etiquette – but isn’t that an odd thing for parliamentarians to fret disproportionately about, given the information reaching the public domain early increases the time they have to mull over what’s been learnt – and unpick it? Surely it gives them a better chance of holding the government to account?
For the stories that have appeared to date about the budget and spending review, have, in the main being “good news” stories the Treasury want to shine a light on, without us being able to see the trade offs they cause. They will only be visible from the data tables available on budget day.
Mr Sunak had been expecting to make many more trade offs than he has ended up having to do.
This is because his leeway to spend is determined by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), and I understand they have decided the COVID pandemic caused less permanent economic damage, meaning permanently higher tax receipts and is one source of his windfall. Recent higher prices also means higher VAT receipts also creates a windfall which can be spent at budget time.
There is some irritation in government at the hand the OBR has handed Mr Sunak. No chancellor or prime minister can ever plausibly turn down the opportunity to spend any windfall that comes their way, such is the nature of competing pressures in government.
However Mr Sunak spent conference season warning about…
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Source : skynews
