6 November Budget day cancelled

The Budget has been cancelled due to the ongoing Brexit discussions and delays, and the PM’s wish to hold a general election by 14 December

The Chancellor, Sajid Javid, confirmed the decision, and it now looks unlikely that there will be a Budget before Spring 2020.

Javid said: ‘The Budget is not going ahead because we are planning now to dissolve parliament on the 6th, so clearly you can’t have a Budget on the same day.’

The PM is pushing for an election before the end of the year, which would mean that parliament would have to be dissolved in early November to allow enough time for the election campaign period.

This would have been Javid’s first Budget since he became Chancellor in July. In September, he made a spending round announcement detailing departmental spending plans for 2020-2021.

At the time, Javid signalled ‘turning the page’ on austerity and laid out plans for an additional £13.8bn of government money for public services, including spending on additional police officers, social care, the NHS and armed forces.

He said that ‘day-to-day departmental spending will now grow by 4.1% above inflation in 2020-21 compared to the previous year. For the first time since 2002, no government department will see a cut to its day-to-day budget.’

This September’s spending round was unusual as it covered only a one-year period. The Treasury said the next multi-year spending review will be carried out in 2020.