Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, might have a little bit of wriggle room in his Spring 2023 Budget, but not much. The sharp fall in wholesale energy prices means the cost of the energy price guarantee (EPG) has been about half that expected. This has helped government borrowing to come in much lower than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expected back in November. However, we think the OBR is set to downgrade its growth forecasts substantially for the latter part of the forecast period, which will severely limit the chancellor’s ability to increase spending and still meet his fiscal target of getting debt falling within five years.
The OBR will therefore give with one hand but take with the other.
Public sector net borrowing will be a little under £40bn lower this year and next, relative to the forecast from the OBR in November, which predominantly reflects lower debt interest payments and stronger receipts.
What’s more, the economy has turned out to be much more resilient than expected in November. As a result, the OBR should be able to revise up its forecast for growth in GDP in 2023 to about -0.5%, from -1.4% in the 2022 Autumn Statement. This should reduce its forecast for public borrowing in 2023/24 by about £13bn.
All this means that the OBR forecast for borrowing in 2023/24 will probably be around £110bn, significantly lower than the £140bn it forecast in November.
However, the OBR is likely to downgrade its medium-term view of trend productivity growth, reflecting its recent finding that it has been significantly too optimistic about medium-term growth on average. This will significantly increase the borrowing estimates after 2023/24.
The key question is which of these effects will win out in five years’ time (the horizon by which debt must be falling). We think the two effects will largely offset each other meaning that the chancellor probably won’t have much more cash to spend now than he did in November. As a result, it’s no surprise that Mr Hunt has been downplaying stories that he will cut taxes.
With this backdrop, we expect the chancellor to make several key tax-related announcements. We expect him to:
The chancellor may also:
David Barton & Tom Pugh, RSM UK
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, might have a little bit of wriggle room in his Spring 2023 Budget, but not much. The sharp fall in wholesale energy prices means the cost of the energy price guarantee (EPG) has been about half that expected. This has helped government borrowing to come in much lower than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expected back in November. However, we think the OBR is set to downgrade its growth forecasts substantially for the latter part of the forecast period, which will severely limit the chancellor’s ability to increase spending and still meet his fiscal target of getting debt falling within five years.
The OBR will therefore give with one hand but take with the other.
Public sector net borrowing will be a little under £40bn lower this year and next, relative to the forecast from the OBR in November, which predominantly reflects lower debt interest payments and stronger receipts.
What’s more, the economy has turned out to be much more resilient than expected in November. As a result, the OBR should be able to revise up its forecast for growth in GDP in 2023 to about -0.5%, from -1.4% in the 2022 Autumn Statement. This should reduce its forecast for public borrowing in 2023/24 by about £13bn.
All this means that the OBR forecast for borrowing in 2023/24 will probably be around £110bn, significantly lower than the £140bn it forecast in November.
However, the OBR is likely to downgrade its medium-term view of trend productivity growth, reflecting its recent finding that it has been significantly too optimistic about medium-term growth on average. This will significantly increase the borrowing estimates after 2023/24.
The key question is which of these effects will win out in five years’ time (the horizon by which debt must be falling). We think the two effects will largely offset each other meaning that the chancellor probably won’t have much more cash to spend now than he did in November. As a result, it’s no surprise that Mr Hunt has been downplaying stories that he will cut taxes.
With this backdrop, we expect the chancellor to make several key tax-related announcements. We expect him to:
The chancellor may also:
David Barton & Tom Pugh, RSM UK