Budget to be held on 26 November, Reeves confirms

The Budget will be take place on Wednesday 26 November, the chancellor has announced.

Rachel Reeves confirmed the date that she will outline the governments taxation and spending plans to pay for things such as hospitals, schools, the military and the police.

It comes as the chancellor faces mounting pressure to balance the public finances, while trying to boost economic growth and maintain the confidence of investors on financial markets.

Economists have warned tax rises or spending cuts must be made if Reeves is to maintain her borrowing rules, given growth has been sluggish and inflation, the rate at which prices rise, has been increasing.

Announcing the date, Reeves said the UK economy "isnt broken", but admitted it was "not working well enough for working people".

"Bills are high. Getting ahead feels tougher. You put more in, get less out. That has to change," she said.

Labour pledged in its election manifesto to not increase taxes on "working people", which included VAT, National Insurance (NI) and income tax.

At the Budget last year, the chancellor increased the amount of NI employers have to pay, which led to a backlash from many businesses and sectors, such as hospitality.

Given the governments pledges, speculation has grown over what taxes Reeves could increase, which suggestions ranging from a windfall tax on the profits of banks to various property taxes or reforming the council tax system.

And with long-term borrowing costs reaching their highest level since 1998, it is getting increasingly expensive to service government debt, eating up what little financial buffer - about £10bn - the chancellor has.

Reeves confirmed she has instructed the governments independent forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to begin the 10-week process of producing a new economic forecast based on her policies for the end of November.

The OBRs assessment of the governments plans is seen as a key factor in ensuring financial markets remain stable and investors, who typically loan the UK money, maintain confidence in the UK economy.

The reports of various policy plans have led to uncertainty in recent weeks and some economists had suggested the government should end uncertainty over possible changes with a fast turnaround Budget in October.

Instead the government will take two and a half months to decide the detail of what is expected to be a tax-raising and reforming statement.

Reeves said the UK had "huge potential" and that her "mission" in the last year was "fixing the foundations" of the economy.

She highlighted that the government had increased the minimum wage, cut NHS waiting times and had begun reforming the planning system it hopes will lead to 1.5 million homes being built in England.

"But Im not satisfied. Theres more to do," she said. "Cost of living pressures are still real.

"And we must bring inflation and borrowing costs down by keeping a tight grip on day to day spending through our non-negotiable fiscal rules.

"Its only by doing this can we afford to do the things we want to do. If renewal is our mission and growth is our challenge, investment and reform are our tools."

Lord Jim ONeill, former Goldman Sachs chief economist who has advised both Labour and the Conservatives said it was "decision time" for the PM and Chancellor.

He said many "rational analysts" were suggesting three or four "big things that have to be tackled", if the UK wanted to solve its financial challenges. These included, he said, the pension triple lock, the housing market, welfare reform and NHS productivity.

"I think theyre quite focused on the latter. But the other three, we just dont really know," he told the BBC.

"The markets are now at the point where something needs to happen on that big stuff because you cant keep going along tampering along at the margin."

Treasury sources said the end of November was in line with typical timing for an Autumn budgetary statement, and that it left time for the "full process" involving the OBR.

The first stage is for the OBR to deliver a new baseline forecast for the UK later this month, which will incorporate a critical new assessment of long-term productivity.

This move alone could open up a difficult hole in the public finances, on top of existing announced U-turns on welfare cuts, and the impact of higher government borrowing costs.

The OBR will tell the Treasury how much taxes will have to rise by or spending will have to be cut by in order to meet the chancellors borrowing rules.

The government will then outline likely measures to the forecasters who will assess how much they are forecast to raise or to cost the exchequer.

Reeves has two rules on government borrowing, which she has repeatedly said are "non-negotiable". These are:

Last month, the independent National Institute for Economics and Social Research think tank said that the overall gap in the public finances could reach as much as £50bn a year.

It pointed to the need to re-establish what it calls "a large buffer" for Reeves to avoid missing her self-imposed borrowing rules.

In recent days long-term borrowing costs across the world have increased, amid concerns about political uncertainty, levels of debt, and a structural shift in pension funds away from such bonds.

Economist Mohamed El-Erian, president of Queens College at Cambridge University, said tax rises were inevitable.

"At the end of the day theres only three ways to deal with a fiscal issue: You raise revenue, you cut expenditure, or you borrow more. The government has made it clear that it will not borrow more.

"Weve already cut expenditure quite a bit and we all know that public services are stretched, plus we need to spend more on defence. So it looks increasingly like shell [Reeves] have to increase taxes and increasingly it looks like she may have to resort to certain taxes that she ruled out in the run up to the general election last year."

The chancellor will have to balance the books, produce a set of policies that will pass her backbenchers and also promote reforming policies that help jump start sluggish growth.