The first UK Budget for the new Labour government, and finance minister Rachael Reeves, is due next week, and here’s what analysts are expecting.
Reeves has inherited a challenging situation, with the new Chancellor blaming the previous Conservative administration for leaving a “£22bn black hole” in the public finances – a figure she used to justify the unpopular decision to cut the winter fuel payment for those not receiving pension credit.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has also warned that next week’s Budget will be “painful”.
“We expect higher borrowing, spending and tax rises relative to what we expected a few weeks ago,” said analysts at Bank of America, in a note dated Oct. 23.
The bank sees borrowing rising by £20bn in FY 2024-25, and in subsequent years expects borrowing to increase by an average of around £22bn/year relative to March.
This implies borrowing in FY 2029-30 could be 0.7% of GDP higher relative to March.
It also expects tax rises of £35bn by 2029-30 and public spending increases of £57bn by 2029-30.
Big tax rises look inevitable, analysts at ING agreed, given the growing demands on the public purse. But the Labour Party promised before the election not to increase income tax, value-added tax and social security contributions for working people.
“In doing so, it has effectively ruled out changes to taxes that account for up to 70% of the public revenue it can actively control,” ING added.
Reeves may look to make things easier by changing the current Treasury rules that dictate that debt must be projected to fall as a share of gross domestic product within five years.
That rule is based on a debt measure that’s being artificially inflated as the Bank of England sells off the bond holdings it inherited as a result of the quantitative easing policies in the wake of the global financial crisis more than 15 years ago.
Switching back to the standard measure of public net debt would increase the headroom available by £16 billion, according to the OBR’s March numbers, ING noted.
“The government may go further still,” ING added. “There’s been a lot of discussion about basing the fiscal rules on public sector net worth.”
Bank of America also expects the UK government to make some limited changes to the debt measures used in its fiscal rules, adding that by reducing the impact of quantitative tightening losses and can release around £22bn extra headroom.
“But risks are rising that the government changes the measure of indebtedness more meaningfully to give itself more fiscal space to invest,” BoA added.
That said, the 2022 mini-budget debacle, which saw a mass sell-off in UK government debt markets, is still fresh in Westminster’s institutional memory.
“We suspect Reeves won’t ramp up investment anywhere near as far as some people have been led to think,” ING added.
“History shows that chancellors tend to want to keep a safety buffer, not just to signal prudence, but also to protect themselves against adverse changes in economic conditions at future budgets.”
