What can the IFS warning tell us about the upcoming spring Budget?

As the cost of living crisis continues to drag on, many are hoping for some sort of relief from chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his upcoming Budget. Sean O’Grady looks into the Institute for Fiscal Studies latest analysis and tells us what we can expect

The chancellor has been given little room to manoeuvre by the report’s grim warnings (PA)

Long before the estimable and independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was set up by George Osborne, then chancellor, in 2010, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) acted as a kind of fiscal watchdog. Unlike the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the IFS can set its own remit and rules about what it concerns itself with. In the current climate of a post-war near-record high national debt and tax burden, and increasing demographic pressures on the public finances, the IFS is needed as much now as at any time in its near 55-year existence.

Its latest report sets out the options for the chancellor’s Budget on 6 March and contains a number of grim warnings. It seems clear that Jeremy Hunt’s political and economic options remain constrained...

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