Tomorrow’s Autumn Statement is the last big opportunity this year for the Government to set out its stall, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Blakeney’s Senior Counsel, and former Labour MP, Melanie Onn gives her take on what it all means.

We are expecting some bold moves, not least because things have become marginally easier for the Chancellor. Jeremy Hunt does have some fiscal headroom that he didn’t have in March, but what does he do with it?

The party-political option, looking for the most impact with voters, would be to focus on personal taxes – the net impact of more money in people’s pockets hitting the wave of falling inflation and growing wages – but that isn’t without risk, especially as far as the Bank of England is concerned. The ‘UK plc’ play would be to make a series of moves to help business and promote growth, but does the Government have the time to wait for the carry through of measures such as these?

Whatever Hunt chooses to do, Conservative backbenches will want more than just manoeuvres, with many looking for tax cuts as well as political vision. They need action, yes, but that has to have some substance behind it which they can talk about confidently on the doorstep.

One thing is for certain, the Chancellor will want to make choices that cause trouble for Labour. The easy way for that to happen would be through spending plans – things unlikely to be acted upon this side of an election but that would need a response from the shadow frontbench.

No one is quite sure when the next General Election is going to come, but the feeling is that after the recent news about the fall in inflation a May date is looking more likely than before. Even if that is the case, there may still be a Spring Statement so the Government would have one last chance to woo the country, and wrap up an unfinished business around tax cuts, before people go to the polls. That said, this Autumn Statement is the last political set piece of 2023 and will set the tone for the year ahead so Hunt, Sunak and the Conservative Party have no margin for error if they are to keep their bid to stay in power alive.