Conservative conference: Hammond confirms Osborne’s austerity timetable has been dropped – Politics live

Rolling coverage of all the developments at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, including Philip Hammond’s speech

8.01am BST

Monday tends to be Treasury day at both the Labour and the Tory conference and today’s sessions in Birmingham are both headlined “an economy that works for everyone”. The key speaker is Philip Hammond, the chancellor, who is up just before lunchtime.

Hammond will say that he is abandoning George Osborne’s plan to get the budget back into surplus by 2020. He will say:

The fiscal policies that George Osborne set out were the right ones for that time. But when times change, we must change with them. So we will no longer target a surplus at the end of this parliament.

Related: Philip Hammond to set out his stall for balanced budget at Tory conference

The chancellor is to tell the Conservative party conference that he remains set on achieving a balanced budget, while reiterating that this would happen in a “pragmatic” way without the need for a surplus this parliament.

The scale of the deficit “remains unsustainable”, Philip Hammond is to say on Monday according to extracts of his speech released in advance.

Continue reading…

Politics blog | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2cMFFIZ

Leave a comment