Would a formal pre-Budget Consultation have been better?

This is Blog 114

‘Shambles’ may have been the most over-used word in the English language in recent days, but chances are that few of us can remember a more confused and chaotic period of preparation for a Government’s Budget.

And – with two weeks to go, it isn’t over yet!

Seventy-eight years ago this month, when Hugh Dalton was Labour Chancellor, he absent-mindedly told a journalist was what to be announced in his Budget a few hours later. For this lapse of protocol, he was obliged to resign.

And though the world changed rapidly – for decades, the convention remained that Budget ‘secrets’ were sacrosanct. Ministers were specifically instructed not to speculate what the Chancellor might be considering, and, as is well documented, many Ministers remained wholly in the dark about key fiscal and economic decisions until the Cabinet was officially informed at the traditional morning meeting before the Budget speech itself.

It has been a classic British stiff-upper-lip self-denying ordinance, allegedly designed to prevent insider-trading on the markets, but also probably to save politicians from unhelpful and divisive discussion of difficult issues. It helped preserve the ‘mystique’ of the Treasury’s omnipotence and spared Chancellors from the most demonstrative lobbying by interested parties. The most important decisions taken by Government, were in effect the least transparent.

In practice, of course, the lobbying was full-on and furious. There are hundreds of trade associations and campaigning bodies for whom Budget Day is the most significant date in their calendar. Some of them press for (or against) policies openly, publishing extensively and using the power of the media to press their case. Others operate more discreetly, making private submissions to Ministers, special advisers, civil servants and influential advisory bodies.

This asynchronous, lop-sided ‘pretend-purdah’ survived for far too long, essentially sidelining Parliament and frequently favouring the rich and powerful who could deploy all the dark arts to persuade politicians - often under the cover of contrived confidentiality. Happily, it could not survive the advent of greater scrutiny, twenty-four hour news and greater freedom of information. So, the cloak of secrecy has been in the process of divestment for years!

Quite right too. There are few more important issues that affect everyone than how we raise our taxes and how we spend our money. Why should this not be a fully open and public debate? Successive Chancellors have found ways to stimulate some discussion though few have been able to resist trying to ‘manage’ the dialogue and steer opinion towards their preferred solutions! Now we have an independent Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) providing a running commentary on the state of the nation’s finances and suggesting what options the Chancellor might have. In effect, the OBR is a giant scoreboard on the edge of a foggy playing field where only some of the players are visible, and no-one quite knows where the ball happens to be at any one time.

The events of recent days may herald the end of this charade, and we should replace it with a formal pre-budget consultation where the Chancellor’s options can be properly placed before the country and considered in line with the rules of consultation.

Just consider what has gone wrong.
• The Government’s core political/economic strategy was simple; grow the economy so as to rebuild our decaying public services. This enabled them to make a manifesto commitment not to raise the most revenue-raising taxes.
• It didn’t (or hasn’t yet) worked, and the 2025 Budget was therefore bound to be problematic.
• They postponed it till late November, possibly in the hope of better economic news, but thereby lengthened the lobbying season and inevitably created a political hiatus between Party Conference Season and the Budget.
• Ministers realised that they MIGHT have to break the Manifesto Commitment, so contrived a process of ‘pitch-rolling’ (a term I first saw used by David Cameron when he sacked Caroline Spelman MP for trying to privatise parts of the Forestry Commission without adequate pre-consultation!)
• This caused Labour MPs much anxiety, and the newly-elected Deputy Leader warned against such potential tax increases.
• Downing Street Advisors panicked and thought it would be clever to let it be known that the PM would fight against any challenger; only someone went OTT, fingered the most articulate TV performer as a potential traitor, and made them all look like a bunch of amateur dramatics people who’d mislaid the script.
• And as if by coincidence, it is leaked that the manifesto commitment was not to be abandoned after all!

I draw the following conclusions.

1. It is GOOD, not Bad to have an open, transparent debate as to what are the best options on fiscal and economic policies. It is too important to leave it to the Think Tanks and the Lobbyists.
2. Parliament, and Backbench MPs SHOULD be involved – rather than just be told on Budget Day and be expected to vote for a Finance Bill that they’ve had little or no influence upon.
3. The kind of unstructured, whim-of-the-moment dialogue we have just witnessed is wholly ineffective. The breakfast speech by Rachel Reeves – saying next to nothing – just made her look silly. It gave the initiative to anyone or everyone who could get themselves on the television, and who could communicate well.               No wonder Farage prospered!
4. There IS a way to organise a useful, fair and transparent public debate. It is called CONSULTATION, and the Treasury does them all the time, usually to a reasonably good standard. Publish a range of potential options, make a reasonable impact assessment of each, invite responses and – in line with Gunning Four – give them ‘conscientious consideration.’ It is not rocket science.

Might this ever happen?

There is a chance that sensible politicians, civil servants and policy-makers might conclude that the unseemly feeding-frenzy of the last few weeks has been so damaging that they resolve never to repeat such a disastrous process.

The Chancellor might yet salvage her reputation and win many friends if she admitted to the embarrassments of what’s happened and pledge her Government in future to organise a professionally run Pre-Budget consultation.

Is everyone in favour?

Rhion H Jones LL.B
November 2025

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