The timing of this year’s Spring Budget was slightly earlier than normal – as far as ‘normal’ can be applied to the scheduling of any fiscal event in recent years. The choice of 6 March probably reflected Rishi Sunak’s desire to keep open the option of calling the general election alongside English local elections due on 2 May. An odd corollary was that the Treasury announced the Budget Date on 27 December. The twixmas press release was necessary because the Chancellor must give the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) ten weeks’ notice of a Budget, so it can prepare its Economic and Financial Outlook (EFO).
To muddle the calendar further, both Jeremy Hunt and his boss started talking about tax cuts long before the OBR had produced even a first draft of the EFO. Subsequently there was something of a rowing back and talk of compensating tax increases , but it was not clear
until 6 March how much of the rediscovered caution was simply a ‘pitch-rolling’ exercise.
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