Good morning. For a “mini” budget, today’s announcements by new chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng will have some pretty maxi consequences. At 9.30 this morning, Kwarteng will set out significant tax cuts, explain how he will pay for the energy price freeze and announce new “investment zones”. He will tell MPs that his plans will help break the “vicious cycle of stagnation”.
Coming the day after the Bank of England said the economy was in recession and put interest rates to their highest level since 2008, even as the pound fell to its lowest level against the dollar since 1985, all this is likely to have a more significant economic impact than many full-scale budgets of previous years – but the Treasury has refused to publish the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) analysis of exactly what their plans will mean.
