The Latest Breaking News from the Office for Budget Responsibility

Chancellor plans sweeping welfare cuts amid tariffs warning, higher inflation and increasing borrowing costs

A minister has defended the proposals saying there is a ‘moral case’ for cutting Britain’s welfare bill

Evening Standard · Mar 5, 2025

Starmer highlights UK’s war record in implicit rebuke to Vance as Lib Dems mock Badenoch for defending him – as it happened

Interventions follow US vice president’s comments about ‘20,000 troops from some random country that has not fought a war in 40 years’

The Guardian - UK · Mar 5, 2025

Record January tax surplus of £15.4 billion falls short of City forecasts

Government in the black last month but £5 billion less than forecast by the OBR in October

Evening Standard · Feb 21, 2025

OBR moving to ‘trust but verify’ relationship with Treasury after ‘black hole’ row – as it happened

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

The Guardian - UK · Nov 5, 2024

Investment drives growth. That’s why gloomy forecasters are so wrong about the budget

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s extreme conservatism means it has woefully underestimated the impact of Labour’s public spending plans

The Guardian - UK · Nov 3, 2024

National Insurance hike could force Scottish care homes to shut doors

CARE homes across Scotland could be forced to shut their doors as a result of the Budget hike in employers’ National Insurance (NI) payments, it…

The National (Scotland) · Nov 3, 2024

Reeves admits tax hikes will hit working people as IFS accuses chancellor of ‘undermining trust’

Rachel Reeves was forced to accept that her decision to raise employers’ national insurance contributions will lead to workers being paid less, but asked, ‘what alternative was there?’

The Independent UK · Oct 31, 2024

Millions of workers to see £600 pay rise hit from National Insurance hike on businesses, says Budget watchdog

The Office for Budget Responsibility stressed three quarters of the rise in National Insurance on employers would ultimately feed through into lower wage increases for employees

Evening Standard · Oct 31, 2024

Post-budget sell-off of government bonds by worried City traders intensifies, pushing up UK borrowing costs – as it happened

Institute for Fiscal Studies says increasing borrowing to fund investment ‘right thing to do’

The Guardian - UK · Oct 31, 2024

Firms ‘set to pass on most of higher tax costs to employees through lower wages’

The Office for Budget Responsibility said it assumes that firms will ‘pass on most but not all of their higher tax costs to employees’.

The Independent UK · Oct 30, 2024