Summary
That’s all from us today Here’s today’s main developments and news.
Following a meeting with the prime minister, Liz Truss, and the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed it will deliver an initial forecast on 7 October. A spokesperson for the OBR said: “[The forecast] will, as always, be based on our independent judgment about economic and fiscal prospects and the impact of the government’s policies.” The announcement comes after a 48-minute emergency meeting at 11 Downing Street this morning.
The Treasury said that Truss, Kwarteng and the OBR discussed the “economic and fiscal outlook” as well as the process for growth forecasts. However, they said the forecast – which they will receive on 7 October – won’t be published until 23 November. The government also said it “values” the OBR’s scrutiny.
A Treasury minister has contradicted the UK’s independent watchdog for public finances, saying it would not have been able to produce a forecast in time for the government’s mini-budget. Andrew Griffith, the financial secretary to the Treasury, told broadcasters the growth plan put forward by Truss and Kwarteng contained “a lot of detail” and repeatedly asserted it was “40 pages long”, meaning it would have been impossible for the OBR to have produced an accurate forecast in time.
The prime minister will be on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg this weekend as the Conservative party conference begins, PA Media reported. Truss will be interviewed on the weekend politics programme, which begins at 8.30am. The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will also appear on the show.
Half of the public now believe it is likely Keir Starmer will become prime minister, according to polls, reports PA Media. A poll of 1,000 adults by Ipsos found 51% think Starmer will enter No 10, up from 38% surveyed in May. More than one-third of voters (35%) said it was unlikely Starmer would become prime minister, a decrease from 50% in January.
More polls have given the Labour party strong leads over the Conservatives. One, by BMG for the i newspaper, gave them a 17-point lead, on 47% to the Tories 30%. Meanwhile smaller firm Omnisis gave them a 33-point lead, as they had 55% against the governing party’s 23%.
Liz Truss is preparing to push ahead with an unlimited number of “investment zones”. The policy is despite a row within the government that it could hand an uncosted blank cheque of tax breaks to businesses.
Talks aimed at ending the dispute over the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol are set to reopen after a video meeting between the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, and the European Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, on Friday. Šefčovič said he had a “good conversation” with Cleverly during a call on Friday lunchtime.
Liz Truss will deliver the biggest permanent real-terms cut to the basic rate of benefits ever made if she fails to raise them in line with inflation, one of the UK’s leading poverty charities has said.
Truss has previously suggested universal benefits, such as the state pension, should be scrapped because of the “huge expense” to taxpayers of “recycling” their money through the system – prompting fears she could go further still with her plans to cut back the benefits bill. The proposal, included in her motion to the Liberal Democrat Youth conference in spring 1995, highlighted the “enormous – and rising – cost of pensions and child benefit”, calling for a “search for realistic alternatives to universal benefits”.
The Greens have kicked off their conference with a call for taxes on wealth and “dirty profits” to finance the transition to renewable energy – while warning Labour’s plans, unveiled last week, are woefully insufficient. At the gathering in Harrogate, days after a Labour conference based heavily on clean power initiatives, the Green party in England and Wales – the Scottish Greens are separate – repeatedly stressed policy differences over not just renewables but areas such as support for strikers and public ownership.
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Another stonking polling lead for the Labour party, as research by BMG for the i newspaper has given them a 17-point edge over the Conservatives.
Nearly half of the voters who backed the Tories in the 2019 general election say they will no longer vote for the party, the polling shows. Just one-in-five support the “mini-budget” from last week which since saw the UK tumbling in the currency and stock markets.
The 17-point lead puts Labour on 47%, ahead of the Conservatives on 30%. The Liberal Democrats are on 9%, the Greens on 5% and Reform UK on 3%.
It would give Labour “a 1997-esque landslide majority” at the next general election, according to BMG’s Robert Struthers.
BMG uses a different polling model to other firms that have given larger leads. Their method aims to account for disaffected voters who say they will abstain but are likely to return to the party they previously backed when polling day comes around.
