Rachel Reeves accused of making 'classic mistake' by former Chancellor George Osborne
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been in the job for nearly a month after Labour's landslide victory last month.
Rachel Reeves has made a “classic mistake” by committing to holding only one major fiscal event every year, George Osborne has suggested.
The pattern for big economic set pieces has been a spring Budget and then an autumn statement for several years.
But Labour pledged in its manifesto that there will only be “one major fiscal event a year” and Ms Reeves said her first Budget will be on October 30.
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Mr Osborne, the Tory former chancellor, and Ed Balls, the Labour former shadow chancellor, told their Political Currency podcast they believed the commitment would not last.
Mr Osborne said: “That is a classic mistake, isn’t it? Philip Hammond announced that after me and I was like ’why are you doing that?’. The Treasury hates having two events a year but for chancellors it is great.”
Mr Balls said: “She will end up having two, I bet you.”
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Ms Reeves has already paved the way for autumn tax rises in her first budget by warning that “difficult decisions” would be required to address a £22billion funding black hole.
The Chancellor has already axed the winter fuel payments for nearly 10 million pensioners, shelves transport projects and scrapped Tory education reforms but hinted she would have to go further in October.
She ruled out raising income tax, national insurance or VAT, keeping to the commitments made in Labour’s election manifesto.
She said: “It will be a budget to fix the foundations of our economy and it will be a budget built on the principles that this new Government was elected on."
