Reeves restores her fiscal headroom
Rachel Reeves faces the prospect of her newly-restored fiscal headroom being wiped out again ahead of the Autumn budget, raising the spectre of fresh take hikes in the future as she battles sluggish growth and economic headwinds.
The Chancellor had previously left herself £9.9bn of headroom but the OBR calculated the UK was in fact heading for a deficit of £4.4bn, forcing the Chancellor to make spending cuts in welfare and across the civil service in order to restore her headroom to just under £10bn once again.
