19 July 2024
Following the King’s Speech held on 17 July 2024, a new Budget Responsibility Bill will be introduced to the UK, ensuring future fiscal announcements making significant, permanent tax and spend changes will be subject to an independent assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the independent watchdog for public finances.
This new law will deliver economic stability by ensuring that no future Government can sideline the OBR. This “fiscal lock” will fix the foundations of the economy, helping protect family finances and creating the conditions for growth. OBR will be given the power to make an independent assessment of any single major tax and spending announcement, or series of announcements over the course of a single financial year, which make permanent tax or spending commitments worth more than 1.0% of the UK’s GDP, or around £30 billion.
The Growth Plan or Mini Budget set out in 2022, went against the grain in not having OBR provide a financial outlook or breakdown of the proposals for that budget… and we all know how that one turned out!
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