Budgets & fiscal events· Economy and public finances Blowing the budget Assessing the implications of the September 2022 fiscal statement 24 September 2022 Torsten Bell Molly Broome Nye Cominetti Adam Corlett Emily Fry Karl Handscomb Lindsay Judge Jack Leslie Louise Murphy Krishan Shah Hannah Slaughter James Smith Greg Thwaites Lalitha Try The Chancellor decided to blow the budget in his first fiscal statement, bringing forward a £45 billion package of tax cuts, the biggest for 50 years. In doing so, he rejected not just Treasury orthodoxy but also the legacy of the previous Conservative administrations, as a wholly new approach to economic policy was unveiled. In this briefing note, we analyse the details of the statement and show that today’s Government is no longer fiscally conservative or courting the Red Wall. Instead, debt is on course to rise in each and every year of the forecast period, and the focus has shifted to the South of England where the beneficiaries of these tax cuts are more likely to be living.
