The U.K.’s newly appointed chancellor of the exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, is set to make a statement around 11 a.m. Monday on the government’s new fiscal plan, a day after teasing a sharp U-turn on his boss Liz Truss’ program.
Hunt’s statement, which will be followed by a declaration in the House of Commons in the afternoon, will aim to appease markets and Tory MPs alike, following the disastrous fallout from Truss’ initial debt-funded, tax-cutting plan. It will come three days after Truss sacked Hunt’s predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng in dramatic fashion in a bid to save her political career.
Hunt’s plan should be strikingly different from the one devised by Truss and Kwarteng less than a month ago.
“We are going to have to take some very difficult decisions, both on spending and on tax,” Hunt told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday. “Spending is not going to increase by as much as people hoped, and indeed we’re going to have to ask all government departments to find more efficiencies than they had planned, and taxes are not going to go down as quickly as people thought, and some taxes are going go up.”
Hunt is in a very powerful position, coming in to save Truss as she tumbles in the polls and faces pressure from her Tory allies amid economic turmoil.
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