Autumn Statement 2023

Jeremy Hunt’s second Autumn Statement was set against a much less financially turbulent background than his first. However, politics still loomed large with a likely election in the next 12 months prompting calls for tax cuts from within the Conservative party. Until recently the Chancellor had attempted to stall such demands with warnings of “difficult decisions” on the public finances owing to a worsened fiscal outlook since his Spring Budget. One reason that he highlighted for the deterioration was the sharply increased cost of government borrowing.

Nevertheless, the Chancellor, who had argued only two months ago that tax cuts were “virtually impossible”, appears to have had a change of heart. Echoing the Prime Minister, Mr Hunt suggested that the achievement of halving inflation in 2023 marked an economic inflexion point that permitted a new policy approach.

The outcome was an Autumn Statement that had been initially trailed as focusing on longer-term issues, but which prioritised short-term tax cuts over maintaining expenditure in later years. On the long term front, the Chancellor confirmed as expected that ‘full expensing’ of corporate investment in plant and machinery would be made permanent at a cost of £10.7 billion a year by 2027/28. The most headline-grabbing moves were cuts to national insurance.