Chancellor John Healey has set the date for this year’s Autumn Budget – choosing to deliver the key fiscal event a month earlier than many analysts predicted.
Healey was only confirmed in post at HM Treasury two weeks ago. But on Friday he revealed that the first budget of new PM Andy Burnham’s administration will take place on Wednesday, 28 October.
The earlier-than-expected budget date came after Burnham and the cabinet published a seven-page policy paper setting out measures to devolve more power from central government to regional mayors and strategic authorities.
Rewiring the State said the changes will “mean a smaller and more strategic civil service, focused on the challenges that can best be dealt with at a national level”, releasing savings and enabling resources to be transferred to local areas alongside policy responsibilities.
October’s Budget is supposed to set out detail on plans to allow regional mayors to retain a portion of income tax and business rates as part of efforts to boost economic growth, moving away from central-government grants in the process.
According to Rewiring the State, a white paper detailing the government’s plans for the full set of devolution reforms will be published alongside the Budget, with “a clear timetable for their implementation”.
In a video message announcing the Budget date, Healey said the government is “working fast to restore hope and back Britain’s communities”.
“In the past two weeks, we have begun to kickstart growth in every postcode,” he said. “We have backed British jobs, British skills and British businesses.
“And we have provided just a bit of breathing space for those families and businesses that feel so squeezed, that feel without hope.
Healey said the Autumn Budget would be one that “moves money and power out of Westminster, and into every postcode around Britain”.
“It will be built on fiscal discipline. It will meet our fiscal rules,” he said. “It’ll give businesses and families some of the stability they need to plan for the future. Now, let’s get on with the job.”