As usual we have a prompt report on what the Chancellor had to say in her Autumn Budget statement on Wednesday 26th November 2025
Updated: 251126 @ 15.45. & 16.30 & 251127
Posted: 251126 @ 15.05

Autumn Statement 2025 started at 12.30pm after Prime Minister's Questions and ran for an hour. As usual, promptly after the Chancellor finished her statement to MPs, we have a prompt report which highlights the key points of interest for V8 Register members and fellow MGV8 enthusiasts.
Autumn Statement 2025 document
HM Treasury website
Budget document as a PDF

Economic indicators: Key statistics for the UK economy. Link

Background briefing for Autumn Budget 2025. Link

OBR economic and fiscal outlook
Real GDP is forecast to grow by 1.5% on average over the forecast, 0.3% points slower than we projected in March, due to lower underlying productivity growth. But
cumulative real wage growth and inflation over the next two years are forecast to be around ¾ and ½ a percentage point higher than in March respectively. This means that total growth in nominal GDP over the forecast is only around 1 percentage point lower than in March and is more tax rich, thanks to a larger share accruing to labour income and consumption. This, combined with frozen personal tax thresholds, boosts pre-measures tax receipts by amounts rising to £16 billion by 2029-30 relative to our March forecast. But pre-measures spending is also higher in every year and by £22 billion in 2029-30 due to higher spending by local authorities and on welfare and debt interest. The net result is a modest medium-term deterioration in the pre-measures fiscal outlook, with borrowing £17 billion higher this year but only £6 billion higher in 2029-30 compared to our March forecast.

Against this backdrop, Budget policies increase spending in every year and by £11 billion in 2029-30, primarily to pay for the summer reversals to welfare cuts and lift the two-child limit in universal credit. The Budget also raises taxes by amounts rising to £26 billion in 2029-30, through freezing personal tax thresholds and a host of smaller measures, and brings the tax take to an all-time high of 38 per cent of GDP in 2030-31. The net impact of Budget spending and tax policies increases borrowing by £5 billion on average over the next three years but then reduces it by £13 billion on average in the following two.

Taking forecast and policy changes together, borrowing is projected to fall from 4.5% of GDP in 2025-26 to 1.9% of GDP in 2030-31. Debt rises as a share of GDP from 95% of GDP this year and ends the decade at 96% of GDP, which is 2 percentage points higher than projected in March and twice the debt level of the average advanced economy. The current balance target is met in 2029-30 with a margin that fell from £10 billion in the March forecast, to £4 billion in the pre measures forecast, but is then boosted to £22 billion by Budget policies. This is close to the £21 billion average absolute revision in the fourth year of our pre measures forecast between fiscal events, and around three-quarters of the £29 billion average margin set aside by previous Chancellors. But it is only around two-fifths of the median £54 billion difference between our forecast for borrowing and final outturn four years hence. It therefore remains a small margin
compared to the uncertainties around our economy forecast, including the outlook for productivity, interest rates, equity prices, and earnings growth. It is also small by comparison to the wider risks around our fiscal forecast, which include risks from the uncertain yield from an array of complex tax changes, and pressures on welfare, health, education, asylum, defence, and local authority budgets.
Link & Timetable

See a guide to budget statement buzzwords. More...

BBC NEWS report
Link

Other views on the Autumn Budget 2025?
See views of Fidelity International. Link

Posted: 251126

During the three months before the Autumn Budget 2025

The most chaotic counter-productive run-up to a Budget seen for many years
For weeks we have seen chronic uncertainty about specific measures that might be in in Reeves' Budget, with Treasury spin-doctors unleashing all kinds of stories, floating endless often conflicting policy trial balloons and flying countless kites. As multiple personal tax and business tax changes have been signalled and then dropped, households and businesses have hunkered down. That created a most chaotic counterproductive run-up to a Budget statement with nervous consumers and companies reining in spending and not investing or taking on more staff ahead of the Autumn Budget. The Government refused ten days before the Autumn Budget statement to rule out extending the long-running freeze on tax thresholds, despite Reeves warning last year that such a move would "hurt working people" and "break Labour's manifesto promises". according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies extending the tax thresholds freeze for another two years would cost basic-rate tax payers £405 per annum, while the growing numbers being dragged into a higher locked rate tax bracket would be a hit with an extra tax bill of £1,129.

The Chancellor and her team simply sucked the life out of the UK economy, killing the drivers which are behind most of our decisions to do something positive - that spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction. The uncertainties tended to spook the markets, not least the property market and also the classic car market as examples of where activity had clearly reduced.
Posted: 251122

Unusual early morning briefing by the Chancellor on 4th November 2025
Since the date of the Autumn Budget was announced on 4th September 2025 there has been growing concern for more than two months over what further tax rises may be in the Autumn Budget and signs the concerns have unsettled the markets, including the classic car market to some extent. To address those growing concerns and continuation of speculation for another 3 weeks over likely tax increases, the Chancellor gave an unusual early morning speech from Downing Street on Tuesday 4th November 2025 to set the context and her priorities for the Budget. But she refused to rule out tax rises as she said she will make the "necessary choices" in her upcoming Budget statement.

Press reviews of the situation suggested not only income tax rises were likely but also a further freeze on income tax bands, known as fiscal drag. That would hit pensioners harder - and many owners and potential buyers of classic cars like MGV8s are in the age group 55 to 80. See articles in the Times on 5th November 2025 with a report on the Chancellor's early morning speech. More

It was hoped the markets would calm once the Autumn Budget statement had been made some three weeks later.
Posted: 251105

Rail freight chief calls for the end to the 15-year fuel duty freeze
The Financial Times reports John Smith, chief executive of GB Railfreight who are the largest UK rail freight operator, has said "Rachel Reeves should end the almost perverse 15-year freeze on fuel duty as it hands road freight truckers a growing cost advantage over more environmentally friendly rail freight operators".

He was speaking as the Chancellor prepares for the Autumn Budget on 26th November 2025 that is expected to maintain the freeze, begun in 2011 by the then Conservative chancellor George Osborne. GB Railfreight is the sector's second biggest in the UK by volume of rail freight moved, and John Smith presented fuel duty as a critical issue for the industry. The Financial Times reports he told them that "the continued freeze in fuel duty - which has not been raised since 2010 and was further cut by 5p a litre in 2022 - conflicted with the Government's desire to transfer freight from polluting trucks to far cleaner rail. Also higher fuel duty would provide badly needed revenue for the Government". Posted 250918

Option of ending the fuel duty freeze has to be on the Chancellor's list of tax options
The 15-year fuel duty freeze announced in 2022 is charged at 57.95p a litre plus VAT and was raised annually at least in line with inflation. It was cut by 5p in 2022 to 52.9p by the then chancellor Rishi Sunak because of the cost of living pressures from rising motor fuel prices caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the consequential disruption in the oil markets. The freeze continued on 6th March 2024 when Jeremy Hunt, as chancellor, said "the fuel duty measures included in the Spring Budget 2024 would save motorists an average of £50 over the next year and would bring the total savings since the 5p cut was introduced in 2022 to £250".