Hammond to unveil £1bn digital boost in Autumn Statement

Philip Hammond has received a boost ahead of his Autumn Statement as official figures showed public sector borrowing last month was lower than expected.

“The Chancellor’s warning at the weekend that he is “highly constrained” suggests that there will be few sweeteners for the “JAMs” – people “just about managing” – in tomorrow’s Autumn Statement”.

The OBR will compare the March Budget forecasts for the size of the economy with the new ones to be published on Wednesday.

Second, inflation is likely to rise from its present 0.9%, echoing warnings from the Bank of England that the figure could hit 2.75% by 2018.

However, the strength of fiscal institutions and work on public finance transparency was praised by the International Monetary Fund.

The IFS believes Mr Hammond should “prepare for more austerity” in the next parliament. We still have a significant deficit in this country. “That means improving the productivity of our economy so we can compete in the world”.

Philip Shaw of Investec Economics said Hammond’s position was better than he might have expected after the European Union referendum as economic growth had only slowed to 0.5% in the third quarter from 0.7% in the previous three months.

Resolution Foundation think-tank said last week that reversing those cuts would be the single biggest change the government could make to help the less well off. Economists think any extra spending on infrastructure will amount to much less than 1 percentage point of gross domestic product, perhaps funded by new infrastructure bonds – although some are skeptical about their merits.

“These families have also faced an additional squeeze over the past two decades – higher housing costs”.

Talk of a government investment fund meant to spur investment by smaller “alternative network providers” has been around since the last Autumn Statement.

“It is also important for the tax burden to be minimised including delaying mandatory quarterly tax reporting, realigning the business tax system to incentivise growth, employment and investment and specific help for the self-employed”.

“From a tax perspective, the recent commitment by Philip Hammond to continue reducing the headline corporation tax rate to 17 per cent by 2020 is a good start”. That might mean targeting 17% given incoming United States president Donald Trump has said he wants to slash American corporation tax to 15% from 35%. On Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled a new industrial strategy, pledging to spend billions of pounds on science, technology and research to spur a new “ambitious” way of doing business in Britain. However, US President-elect Donald Trump has spoken about cutting the equivalent US federal tax from 35% to 15%, raising the possibility of further cuts in the UK.

Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms expert from the website cable.co.uk said the government’s funding proposal of superfast broadband was “absurd” when so many have poor connection issues.

He said Labour wanted a 500 billion-pound boost to investment over a decade, half of it public money and the rest from the private sector, to speed up Britain’s economic growth and reduce the need for cuts in welfare spending.