New Chancellor makes statement on UK Government spending plans

Kerri Prince, BASW UK’s Public and Political Affairs Lead, will be updating this page with latest announcements from the UK Chancellor's emergency statement. 

Last week Prime Minister Liz Truss asked Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng for his resignation as a result of the growing backlash to his budget last month. On the same day, the Prime Minister appointed Jeremy Hunt MP as the new Chancellor.

Jeremy Hunt announced in the early hours of Monday morning that he would deliver a statement in parliament at 3:30pm. It’s confirmed that the Government is rowing back on parts of September’s mini budget that have not started parliamentary legislation. Announcements so far include:

• The planned cut to the 20% basic rate of tax has been abandoned, along with the planned cut to corporation tax
• The cut to National Insurance and Stamp Duty has been kept
• The energy price cap will now only last until April, with Jeremy Hunt announcing that he will do a review of energy costs
• Plans to repeal the IR35 reforms have been scrapped

Along with these changes, the UK Government will also confirm later this week what the cuts to public spending will be.

The debt plan will still be published on 31st October, alongside an official forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

We will update this statement as and when more information is published.