Kwasi Kwarteng brings forward debt plan to 31 Octoberon October 10, 2022 at 9:29 am

Kwasi Kwarteng will set out his plan for balancing the government’s finances on 31 October, nearly a month ahead of the original date.

The fiscal statement is expected to detail how the chancellor intends to pay for £43bn of tax cuts as well as plans to reduce debt.

An independent forecast of how the economy will perform in coming years will be published at the same time.

Mr Kwarteng had previously insisted he would announce plans on 23 November.

However, financial markets reacted badly to a lack of detail when he laid out his mini-budget last month. Mr Kwarteng’s refusal to publish a draft report by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to accompany the mini-budget on 23 September also rattled markets and some MPs.

The new date means Mr Kwarteng’s fiscal statement will be published before the Bank of England announces its latest decision on interest rates on 3 November.

The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is widely expected to raise interest rates for the eighth time since last December with many economists forecasting a sharper rise than previous increases.

But Mel Stride, chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, tweeted that he hoped Mr Kwarteng’s decision to release the report earlier would result in a smaller rate rise.

He tweeted: “If this lands well with markets then MPC meeting on 3rd Nov may result in smaller rise in interest rates. Critical to millions of mortgage holders.”

The OBR, the independent budget watchdog, will now publish a report alongside Mr Kwarteng’s statement at the end of October. Its forecasts will give an indication of the health of the nation’s finances.

There was confusion last week after government sources briefed journalists that Mr Kwarteng would bring forward his fiscal statement to October, only for the chancellor and prime minister to contradict this a day later.

Quizzed on Tuesday by GB News, the chancellor said there had been no change. “People have been reading the runes and the pauses, it’s going to be the 23rd,” he said.

However, Treasury sources then clarified that the chancellor would, indeed, bring the statement forward and that it had simply been waiting to officially announce the change of date in Parliament.