Treasury confirms Budget 2018 date

This will be the second Autumn Budget since Philip Hammond abolished the Autumn Statement

The Budget will be delivered on Monday 29th October this year, the Chancellor Philip Hammond has confirmed.

The Treasury said Mr Hammond will “will set out the government’s plan to build a stronger, more prosperous economy, building on the recent Spring Statement and last year’s Budget”.

The chancellor’s report on the state of the economy comes earlier than usual this year, and will fall before an emergency Brexit summit scheduled for November.

According to previous reports, the reason for bringing the Budget forward is so the Finance Bill can pass through parliament before any potential Brexit legislation is presented before MPs.

This is only the second autumn Budget, since Mr Hammond announced in 2016, shortly after he was appointed, that he was abolishing the long-held tradition of delivering the annual government Budget in March.

He said that the Budget would instead be held in the Autumn, around the time that the Autumn Statement, previously the second fiscal event of the year, was held.

At the time, Mr Hammond said he was making the timetable changes because “no other major economy makes hundreds of tax changes twice a year, and neither should we”.

The government recently recorded the biggest budget surplus for the month of July in 18 years, leading to calls for an end to austerity in the UK.

Mr Hammond has already hinted that he will scrap the eight-year freeze on fuel duty in the Budget, telling MPs the impact of the policy must be “looked at again”.

He said the freeze had saved the average car driver £850 and the average van driver more than £2,100.

However, he added: "It is important that we remember the other side of this coin, the fuel duty freezes since 2011 have meant the Exchequer has foregone around £46bn in revenues through to 2018-19 - and a further £38bn will be foregone over the budget forecast period as a result of these previously announced freezes.

“For context, this is about twice as much as we spend on all NHS nurses and doctors each year.”