Chancellor Philip Hammond is considering scaling back the importance of the Autumn Statement and the role of the Treasury and reprioritising its tax and spending policy decisions into the spring budget.
According to the Financial Times, Hammond has told colleagues he wants to reposition away from ‘gimmicks and micromanagement’ and return it to a fiscal forecasting role.
However, the statement this year will go ahead as planned on 23 November and expectations of indications of post June Brexit vote policy are high.
Prime Minister Theresa May has already indicated she wants to end the Treasury’s imperial grip on Whitehall and is returning Number 10 back into the engine room of government.
Meanwhile, in early October, the Institute for Government, Institute for Fiscal Studies and Chartered Institute of Taxation all wrote a letter to Hammond calling for earlier consultation on tax changes and to resist the temptation to use the Autumn statement to announce a raft of policy changes.
Previous chancellor George Osborne was forced to climb down on proposals for tax credit cuts and a pasty tax, badged ‘costly errors and embarrasing u-turns’, as outlined in the trade bodies’ letter.
Chancellors have been obliged to offer two economic updates a year since 1976.
Victoria Hartley is contributing editor at Mortgage Solutions, Specialist Lending Solutions, Your Money and Your Mortgage at London-based publishing company AE3 Media.
She has an MA in Radio from Goldsmiths after gaining a 2:1 in a Comparative American Studies BA at Warwick University. She also holds a TEFL qualification and taught overseas in Mexico and Japan from 1994 to 1997.
Her role includes editorial oversight of the news, analysis and features, event content management and strategic and editorial consultancy for the AE3 Media group. She is an experienced video, broadcast and live-event host and regularly chairs web and podcast debates and interviews.
Multiple award nominations have resulted in two wins: Santander Media Awards, trade journalist of the year and Headlinemoney Awards, mortgage journalist of the year (B2B). Here is one of the award-winning pieces: https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2011/07/21/exclusive-tale-bailey-fraud-witness/
Previous roles include editorships of Mortgage Solutions, consumer title What Mortgage and trade title Credit Today as well as a stint freelancing for a variety of outlets including The Guardian and Which? Money.
