When pressed in Parliament, Ms Reeves instead reiterated her commitment to the borrowing rules set out in October, which include balancing day-to-day expenditure with tax receipts and reducing debt as a share of GDP over the forecast period.
Despite having vowed to hold just one Budget a year to provide businesses with predictability, the Chancellor pledged to go “further and faster” amid recent market turmoil. She attributed a sharp rise in borrowing costs to “global movements in international markets” and insisted she would continue meeting the Government’s fiscal rules.
Her remarks followed a politically fraught week, during which the pound slipped and UK bond yields surged — developments that critics blamed partly on Ms Reeves’s trip to China. Speculation about her position mounted on Monday after Sir Keir Starmer refused to guarantee that she would remain as Chancellor until the next general election, although Downing Street later confirmed its confidence in her leadership.
Meanwhile, the latest sale of 30-year inflation-linked gilts saw a small dip in demand compared with a similar auction last year. Lower demand tends to push bond yields higher, potentially adding further strain on the Chancellor’s fiscal room for manoeuvre.
Jamie Young
Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the 'covid era' and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine's coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk
