Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver her second Spring Statement tomorrow (3 March) in the House of Commons
The annual fiscal event is expected to be a largely tame affair, but surprise announcements could be on the cards
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will publish its latest economic forecast alongside Reeves’s statement
It comes after the government recorded a record-breaking budget surplus of £30.4 billion in January following an uptick in tax receipts
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That ends our coverage for today, but make sure you join us again tomorrow when we'll bring you live coverage of the Spring Statement, plus more analysis and expert commentary.
Could ‘boring’ Spring Statement be what’s needed for the pension sector?
Plenty of changes are on the way for the pension sector, such as pensions being included in the scope of inheritance tax from April 2027 and a reduction in salary sacrifice National Insurance savings from 2029.
This comes as the seismic Pension Schemes Bill makes its way through the House of Lords.
With all this considered, pension savers will be hoping for a “boring sequence of fiscal events” this year, including the Spring Statement, said Jamie Jenkins, director of policy at retirement firm Royal London.
“Given the recent history of fiscal events, one can easily get excited at the prospect of boredom,” Jenkins said.
What is the Spring Statement?
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is required to make two sets of economic forecasts each year which outline their projections for the economy, based on the government’s fiscal policy.
The most significant of these is published alongside the Autumn Budget, the most important fiscal event of the year where most governments outline their economic policy.
The other forecast is usually published in the Spring. The chancellor usually makes a statement to the House of Commons addressing these projections, hence the name “Spring statement”.
The Spring statement is not necessarily an event where new fiscal policy is announced, but previous chancellors have used the statement to outline new economic plans to meet OBR forecasts.
For example Rachel Reeves used the Spring statement to announce cuts to welfare in her 2025 statement.
When is the Spring Statement?
The chancellor will deliver the Spring Statement in the House of Commons at around 12:30pm tomorrow (3 March).
The 2025 Spring Statement lasted around 30 minutes, and this year’s statement is expected to take around the same amount of time.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the UK’s fiscal watchdog, will also publish updated economic forecasts alongside the Spring Statement. We expect these to be released at around 2:30pm.
Will anything major be announced during the Spring Statement?
Rachel Reeves isn’t expected to make any major policy announcements as her preference is to do this just once a year at the Budget.
However, the chancellor did confirm some big changes to the benefits system in the 2025 Spring Statement, although some of these were reversed later in the year.
Good afternoon and welcome to MoneyWeek’sSpring Statement live report. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to deliver the statement to the House of Commons tomorrow (3 March). We will be covering all the major announcements as they happen, as well as bringing you reaction and analysis.
