Jeremy Hunt to unveil autumn statement as Labour says nothing can change Tories’ ‘appalling’ economic record – UK politics live

Good morning. Today Jeremy Hunt will deliver his second autumn statement since (like his old boss David Cameron) he made a totally unexpected return to cabinet, appointed chancellor as Liz Truss’s premiership was in its death throes. After he delivered his first one just over a year ago, the Guardian’s report led on Britain facing the biggest hit to living standards on record after Hunt announced £30bn of delayed spending cuts and £25bn of backdated tax increases. The Tory papers gave it probably the most negative coverage for any fiscal statement from a Conservative chancellor in modern times. Almost anything today would get a better reception.

But in fact, if the advance briefing is reliable, Hunt is on course to deliver a statement that will get a dramatically better reception. As Larry Elliott and Pippa Crerar report in their preview, he will announce cuts to personal taxes, and a significant raft of pro-business measures.

Here are some of the front pages.

Rishi Sunak and Conservative MPs hope that this will be a turning point in his party’s fortunes. In a speech on Monday, he in effect announced his party’s election strategy, saying it would be a choice between “a Conservative party that is delivering lower taxes because we have now halved inflation and control spending, or a Labour party that’s just going to borrow an enormous amount more, not having learned the lessons at all of not just the last 10 years, but of the last two years, and continue with the same failed prescription, which is more government, more borrowing, more spending”.

But one autumn statement cannot undo the impact of decisions taken over one year, or four years, or 13 years. And, as Torsten Bell, head of the Resolution Foundation thinktank has pointed out, you should never talk about tax cuts without explaining the context.

Short version: you’re not ‘cutting taxes’ if you raise people’s taxes a lot and then given them back a little

This is a point Labour will be making. In a statement released overnight, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said:

After 13 years of economic failure under the Conservatives, working people are worse off. Prices are still rising in the shops, energy bills are up and mortgage payments are higher after the Conservatives crashed the economy.

The 25 Tory tax rises since 2019 are the clearest sign of economic failure, with households paying £4,000 more in tax each year than they did in 2010. The Conservatives have become the party of high tax because they are the party of low growth. Nothing the chancellor says or does in his autumn statement can change their appalling record.

Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, the Labour party has changed. Labour is now the party of fiscal responsibility, we are the party of business and we are the only party with a plan to make working people better off.

Today we will be focusing almost exclusively on the autumn statement. Graeme Wearden will be joining me on the blog later and we will be covering the statement in full, and providing reaction and analysis.

Here is the agenda.

8.30am: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet, where Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, briefs colleagues on the autumn statement.

12pm: Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

12.30pm: Hunt presents his autumn statement to the Commons.

2.30pm: Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, holds a press conference on the OBR’s forecasts.

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