Resume af teksten:
Finansminister John Healey fastholder den planlagte finanspolitiske konsolidering trods højere låneomkostninger.
Budgetunderskuddet ventes ifølge Office for Budget Responsibility at falde fra 4,2 procent i år til 3,4 procent i 2027.
Frysningen af skatteterskler ventes at løfte indkomstskatten som andel af BNP med næsten et halvt procentpoint.
Det samlede finansieringsbehov ventes at blive 312 mia. pund næste år.
Budgettet indebærer et midlertidigt finanspolitisk løft på cirka 0,2 procent af BNP i år og 0,1 procent i 2027.
Støtten omfatter lavere moms på elektricitet og en rabat på 100 pund til visse husstande.
Regeringens udgiftsramme for ministerier er stort set uændret senere i årtiet trods højere inflation.
OBR’s tal indebærer årlige reale nedskæringer på 2,6 procent for ubeskyttede ministerier senere i årtiet.
Regeringen ventes at fremlægge en udgiftsgennemgang i 2027.
Fra ING:
There’s a lot to like for investors in today’s budget, even if a lot of it had been trailed in advance. UK Chancellor John Healey has kept the long-planned fiscal consolidation on track, despite rising borrowing costs. And, crucially, he’s avoided doing anything that could make life decisively harder for the Bank of England, with a rate hike likely just days away.
There are two key numbers. The first is the 2027 budget deficit, which the independent Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts at 3.4%. That’s down from 4.2% this year, which, even after the Iran War, is itself down from 4.4% last year. That’s after accounting for the rise in borrowing costs, which add around half a percentage point to the deficit each year.
The UK’s fiscal consolidation remains in play. And though it’s taking longer than previously expected, it still means Britain is the only G7 economy actually taking steps to improve its deficit.
The increase in bank taxes will attract most of the headlines today, but that improvement in the deficit is rooted in the ongoing freeze in tax thresholds. This means that with inflation, more people are getting dragged into higher tax brackets. This ‘fiscal drag’ is driving the entirety of the deficit improvement next year; income tax as a share of GDP is projected to rise by almost half a percentage point. And aside from a small change to the basic allowance for low-income pensioners, there’s nothing in Healey’s first budget today that suggests this policy is imminently set to get watered down.
The result is that debt issuance – the number the markets ultimately care most about – is barely set to rise next year versus previous plans from the Debt Management Office. The £312bn gross financing requirement is below most people’s expectations (although there are a lot of moving parts here, and not all of them intrinsically linked to the government’s fiscal choices).
The second key number is the degree of fiscal expansion. For the current fiscal year, this budget offers a small stimulus of roughly 0.2% of GDP – and for 2027, it’s 0.1%. That’s driven primarily by temporary and targeted energy support – a cut to VAT on electricity and a £100 rebate for certain households – which should also shave 0.1-0.2ppt off near-term inflation.
These are not the sorts of numbers that move the dial for the Bank of England. And though the BoE is on track to raise rates next week, and potentially again in February, the Chancellor has avoided adding fuel to the fire.
Still, this is a budget that leaves more questions than answers.
How will the government account for higher inflation in departmental budgets? How will it fund defence? Both questions were left unanswered today. The government’s overall spending pot for government departments was left largely unchanged later this decade, despite a higher path for inflation and the Chancellor’s reaffirmed commitment to 3% NATO spending by 2030. Implicitly, that pledge is being funded by squeezing other areas of government; the OBR’s numbers imply real-terms cuts of 2.6% a year for unprotected departments later this decade.
That almost certainly won’t happen – and this is before you take social care or any of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s other bold policies into account.
These thorny issues have been punted into 2027, potentially in the autumn, when the government will have to unveil its long-awaited Spending Review. This is the process that allocates spending across government departments and is fraught with political risk.
And because of that risk, it’s one of the reasons we think a general election in 2027 is getting more likely. Chancellor Healey said on more than one occasion in his budget speech that the Prime Minister is close to unveiling a 10-year plan. Much like his pitch to the Labour Party Conference in September, we suspect it will sound a lot like a manifesto. We wrote more about our thinking here .
Election or not, at some point the government will face a dilemma. Barring a significant improvement in the economic outlook, it will either have to increase the major taxes – something its 2024 manifesto pledged not to do – substantially cut the welfare bill, or increase borrowing via looser fiscal rules.
It’s a reminder that while Britain’s public finances look brighter than some of its peers right now, it shares the same long-term challenges – and the same unpalatable choices – as many of its European neighbours.
Kilde: ING, https://think.ing.com/opinions/why-britains-boring-budget-points-to-an-early-election/
Hurtige nyheder er stadig i beta-fasen, og fejl kan derfor forekomme.
