The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has voiced concerns that the Chancellor Philip Hammond may have to scrap his planned target of eliminating the UK\u2019s deficit by the mid-2020s if he wants to increase public spending.<\/p>\n
The think tank has described the Chancellor, who will deliver his Autumn Budget on 22 November, as being caught between \u201ca rock and a hard place,\u201d and suggested that Mr Hammond may have to admit that it is \u201cno longer sensible\u201d to aim to balance Britain\u2019s books in such a short space of time.<\/p>\n
Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director at the IFS, said: \u201cPublic sector workers, the NHS, the prison service, schools and working-age benefit recipients, among others, would like more money.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven all the current pressures and uncertainties, and the policy action that these might require, it is perhaps time to admit that a firm commitment to running a budget surplus from the mid-2020s onwards is no longer sensible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments come just weeks after Mr Hammond told reporters that driving down the deficit \u201cin a measured and sensible way\u201d over the next few years \u201chas to be the right way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a spokesperson on behalf of the Treasury has reportedly said that it will continue to adopt a \u201cbalanced approach\u201d going forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has voiced concerns that the Chancellor Philip Hammond may have to scrap his planned target of eliminating the UK\u2019s deficit by the mid-2020s if he wants to increase public spending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2097,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions\/2097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}