Is there anything we don’t know about Hunt’s Autumn Statement?

What does Jeremy Hunt want us to know about the Autumn Statement? The Chancellor is in the final hours of writing the economic announcements for Thursday, and today he had his last Treasury questions in the Commons before he gives his long speech.

Hunt has been rolling the pitch more assiduously than an MCC groundsman over the past few weeks, with endless briefings about black holes, tax rises and unpopular spending cuts. Today, he was talking again about how ‘difficult’ things were going to be. He said:

‘Despite the difficulty of the package I will be announcing, I will sadly not be drinking any whisky as I do so.’

Hunt also insisted that ‘we will approach the difficult situation that we face progressively’ and ‘will ask those who have more to give more’. He told two Tory backbenchers anxious about economic stability that ‘what I talk about on Thursday will include our plan for growth over the next five years as well as our plan for stability’, and that ‘Margaret Thatcher said there is nothing moral about spending money you do not have’.

He was teased by the Speaker after he said ‘we will be using people who have more to contribute even more, and that will be reflected in our decisions on council tax and every other tax as well’. Lindsay Hoyle joked: ‘You might save something for Thursday as well.’

The Chancellor also used the interesting line that the energy support package is, at £140 billion, ‘almost…supporting an entire second NHS’. Clearly in Hunt’s mind, this town ain’t big enough for two NHS-style behemoths, and so he added: ‘We have to have a long-term solution that is about energy independence and energy efficiency.’ Hunt has already said that the energy support package won’t last as long as Liz Truss had indicated when she was prime minister. He, like Rishi Sunak, is concerned that the state is overreaching into areas it shouldn’t lurk in for the long term. But there is no appetite to roll it back beyond sacred cows like the health service. That said, the sacred cow isn’t likely to be getting much roughage this winter either.

Hunt and Rachel Reeves had a rather amusing exchange. She opened her topical questions by asking:

‘Today’s numbers show that real wages are down £1,000 a year. The Chancellor himself has admitted that the NHS is on the brink of collapse, and he is preparing for more stealth taxes on working people later this week. Getting our economy firing on all cylinders is essential for fixing this mess, so will the Chancellor tell the House where the UK is projected to finish in OECD growth rates over the next year?’

In response, Hunt quoted Alistair Darling on the recession in 2010, saying the UK wasn’t where that downturn had started, before adding to Reeves:

‘If the right hon Lady wants to be the next Chancellor, she should listen to the last Labour Chancellor.’

Reeves wasn’t all that flattered, even by the suggestion that she might be the next person to take on the job after Hunt. She complained he hadn’t answered her question, and pointed out that ‘out of 38 advanced OECD economies, the UK is forecast to finish last’. She then asked Hunt to ‘match Labour’s ambitions for British industries in hydrogen, insulation, carbon capture, solar, nuclear and wind power to create new jobs here in Britain’. Hunt’s response was to give Reeves some advice:

‘We will have many exchanges, so I as the hon. Lady when she picks a statistic about next year’s growth, not to do so too selectively because this year we have the fastest growth in the G7.’

Reeves might reasonably point out that she has been Shadow Chancellor for longer than Hunt has been in the Treasury. His demeanour was hardly that of a politician enjoying toying with an economically confused opposition who are on the way to lose the next election. Perhaps that really is too difficult a prospect.