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Autumn Budget 2026: Reaction

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey, presented his 2026 Autumn Budget to Parliament on 28 October and published supporting documents on the gov.uk website.  

When the Chancellor finished his statement in the Commons, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published updated forecasts for the UK’s economic and fiscal outlook. The OBR is the independent public finances watchdog that produces the official forecasts for the economy and public finances used by the Chancellor. 

The Chancellor said that the 2026 Autumn Budget is "for the working people of Britain. It's a Budget for business, big and small" which is "built on fiscal discipline". 

MPs gave their immediate reaction in the debate that followed the Chancellor's statement to the House of Commons. The debate continues Thursday and Monday and will conclude on Tuesday 3 November.  

The Library briefing Autumn Budget 2026: A summary picks out the key announcements in the Budget and provides an overview of the latest forecasts. 

How have think-tanks responded to the Autumn Budget?

Institute for Fiscal Studies

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) published an initial response to the Budget. The response described it as "broadly the Budget that many were expecting", saying the Chancellor "has chosen to accept higher borrowing over the next five years" in the face of "bad economic news".

The IFS welcomed the Chancellor's "commitment to fiscal consolidation", though also said the planned consolidation "has an Achilles' heel in the form of very tight plans for public service spending" and higher borrowing means the Chancellor "now has less scope to absorb future bad news".

The IFS response goes on to say the Budget contained "a raft of fiddly measures but very little that will move the dial on growth", as well as a "hodgepodge of tax increases and cuts" that would "further complicate the tax system", adding "in most cases it is hard to see a clear economic rationale".

In introductory remarks to an IFS event on the morning of 29 October, IFS Director Helen Miller said the Budget contained "a relatively small cost of living package and a handful of tax rises", as well as "nods that there are bigger things to come, including in the 10-year plan". 

Ms Miller's response said the Budget left "overall departmental spending across the rest of the parliament broadly unchanged in cash terms", meaning the "the real-terms value of budgets has been cut". As a result, some public services "will see real-terms cuts in next year's Spending Review", saying such plans "don’t look to me like plans that this government would want to deliver".

National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Analysis published by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said that the Budget delivered some "breathing space" to households "struggling with cost-of-living pressures", through "mild fiscal loosening, most obviously through changes to energy bills and council taxes". The response goes on to say that the "net effect" of these measures has been "a reduction in the Chancellor's buffer against his fiscal rules from £23.6 billion in March to £14.5 billion".

The response also argues the Budget does not attempt to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio in the medium term, saying "difficult decisions have, once again, been deferred, leaving the integrity of public finances contingent on good fortune", and this approach "leaves the UK government more exposed to renewed market scrutiny in the months ahead".

Resolution Foundation

The Resolution Foundation response, Spread Thin, described the Budget as "remarkable for its lack of action, rather than its radicalism". The response said the Chancellor faced a balancing act, "caught between the need to help household finances" and "to repair the public finances hit by higher interest rates", though argues measures to support falling living standards were "poorly targeted and thinly spread", while "little effort was made to repair the damage done to the public finances through higher debt interest costs".

The response argues that future cost of living support measures should be targeted "at lower-income households with high energy needs, rather than spreading it thinly across the income distribution".

The response also states tax changes "drift in the direction of adding more complexity to an already-creaking system", and that the government missed "another opportunity to balance the books with more efficient and durable tax rises, rather than temporary and costly ones".

The response concludes the Chancellor's actions "failed to rise to the scale of the challenges facing Britain", saying the Chancellor "has left himself little space to absorb any further negative news" and "shed little light on how Britain can pay for many of the really big things that our new Government says need to be done".

Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)

Harry Quilter-Pinner, Executive Director at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), described the Budget as making "a strong start on the big reform that the UK needs".

The response welcomed changes to the bank corporation tax surcharge, and the gambling levy, as well as "the government’s road map on fiscal devolution", describing these measures as "important first steps on tax reform to drive greater prosperity that's fair to all". The response also said the government's 10-year plan and next year's spending review "will now need to do the heavy lifting of fundamental reform".

IPPR Associate Director for economic policy, Carsten Jung, said cost of living supports announced in the Budget "could have real economy wide benefits" and also said the government is "giving a clear sense of direction on growth", through "programmes to boost homegrown AI and its support for scale-ups".

In a separate response, Zoë Billingham, Director of IPPR North, described the Budget as "a vote of confidence in our regional and local leaders" and said the UK had "taken a jump ahead on devolution".

The response praised the government for sticking to "its promise to speed up progress on fiscal devolution with commitments on devolving business rates and a share of income tax to England's mayors", though also said the government should "ensure that income tax devolution is ambitious enough to truly make a difference in peoples' lives".

Institute for Government (IfG)

The Institute for Government's (IfG) Chief Economist Thomas Pope described the Budget as "big in size but small in ambition", saying the Chancellor had "deliberately delayed big decisions" until next year.

The response said the Budget contained "few policies of fiscal importance", and spending changes were "almost all modest or pre-announced" and the "overall fiscal picture is mostly unchanged".

The response argues short-term support for households, focused on energy bills is "likely to be quite noticeable", though the support is "not especially targeted at those most in need". The response concludes that the government needs to "start making a stronger political argument that the current fiscal position requires tough policy choices, and short-term giveaways cannot continue indefinitely" and that 2027 "is set to be a difficult year for government".

Institute of Economic Affairs

The Institute of Economic Affairs Chief Economist Dr Valentin Boboc described the Budget as "consisting entirely of marginal tweaks", some of which "will bring marginal improvements", while others "will end up doing more harm than good".

The response argues increases to the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage "will severely restrict businesses' capacity to hire people" and describes £100 energy payments as unlikely to "offer meaningful relief for the people most in need", though praised suspension of import tariffs on certain goods and the abolition of gas standing charges.

The response concludes that some of the Budget measures "do try to address supply-side issues in a limited way", though none "addresses the worst obstacles to economic growth that the country faces".

Adam Smith Institute

Writing on X, Adam Smith Institute Head of Communications Silvia Andreoletti, said the Chancellor had "delivered a hodgepodge of expensive measures without a clear direction", saying these measures will "plunge the country deeper into debt and sabotage efforts to get Britain growing". The response goes on to state that support on energy costs and small business rate relief "will likely be wiped out by rising inflation and sluggish demand".

Centre for Policy Studies

Centre for Policy Studies Director Liam Halligan described the Budget as a "dangerous continuation of Labour's tax-and-spend fantasy, pushing Britain closer to a full-blown fiscal reckoning", saying that by putting extra levies on banking profits and property income, the Chancellor is "squeezing the very sectors needed to drive growth".

Fraser of Allander Institute

The Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde said the Budget "was more about rearranging rather than reimagining" and said with higher inflation and higher borrowing costs "it's easy to see why Healey has chosen a Budget focused on steadying the ship rather than major reform".

The response also said the Budget impact on the Scottish Block Grant is "complicated by a technical adjustment affecting public sector pensions", though broadly will lead to "an increase in Barnett consequentials on the revenue side and reductions on capital in the years ahead".

How have business organisations responded?

British Chambers of Commerce

Shevaun Haviland, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, said the Budget sent "the right signals to business" but lacked "big calls that would really shift the economic dial", and that "overall, most businesses won't notice this budget at all". 

The response praised several Budget measures, including the new Founders Relief and removal of business rates "for many in the retail, hospitality and leisure" sectors, as well as additional funding for AI, and increased finance through the National Wealth Fund and British Business Bank, saying this will "offer new opportunities for entrepreneurs to start and scale up".

The response goes on to say the BCC would have liked to see "a wider range of businesses benefitting from energy support and business rates reform, and more action to tackle the youth unemployment crisis".

Confederation of British Industry

Rain Newton-Smith, Chief Executive of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) described additional funding for the British Business Bank as "a welcome step that can help unlock private investment, giving growing firms the backing they need to invest, innovate and create jobs", though said the Budget overall "lacks the bold moves that would have made it easier for firms to invest, hire and grow".

The response said that while business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure firms "will be welcomed", the Budget "misses the chance to deliver the wholesale reform to the system we desperately need".

The response also argues the increase to the banking surcharge "must be time-limited and the government must work with the sector on how to keep the UK ahead in a global competition".

The response also said the Budget provides "nothing concrete" on support for energy costs for business, saying future action on business energy costs "must be followed through in the government's upcoming 10-year plan".

Federation of Small Businesses

Federation of Small Businesses Policy Chair, Tina McKenzie, said the Budget "missed the mark" on matching the government’s ambition for good growth in every postcode, saying small businesses "got nothing" to help with energy bills, or ease employment costs.

The response welcomed the increase in small business rates relief, though argues the changes "should have been applied much more widely", saying "small businesses blighted by the rates system aren't just on the high street", and relief should have been extended to other small businesses.

The response also said that Federation of Small Businesses' research indicates 47% of small businesses expect their revenues to shrink in the coming months, while 22% expect revenue growth, and that the Budget did not contain any measures likely to "change that gloomy outlook".

Responses from other organisations

Local Government Association 

Cllr Eamonn O'Brien, Chair of the Local Government Association (LGA) welcomed extra funding to tackle rough sleeping and for social housing, though said the lack of an overall funding increase for local government "means councils will continue to struggle to meet demand and provide services to our communities". 

The response also said government plans for fiscal devolution "must ensure investment decisions can better meet local needs" and argued for a "new deal for local government", saying "genuine devolution must go beyond mayors and strategic authorities to empower councils themselves".

Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Chris Belfield, Senior Economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said the government needs to "invest in families' economic security" if it wants to beat the forecasts for economic growth, and that "we need to see bolder interventions that give families and our economy the firm foundation of better living standards".

Trades Union Congress

Trades Union Congress (TUC) General Secretary Paul Nowak said the Prime Minister and Chancellor "have started to give families and firms much-needed breathing space".

The response said the government was right to boost investment in some industries through the National Wealth Fund, though said the Budget did not do enough to support manufacturers facing "crippling energy costs". The response also said that "strong public services are the bedrock of a strong economy" and urged the government to engage with public sector unions ahead of the Spending Review "to map out a way to rebuild public services and support the people delivering them".

Women's Budget Group

In the response published by the Women's Budget Group, Dr Daniella Jenkins, said the Budget "offers a few much-needed measures to address the cost of living, primarily by shielding households from even steeper energy bills", though "many women, particularly single parents on low incomes, won't see enough help with the scale of financial pressures they face going into this winter".

The response praised expansion of statutory paternity pay to self-employed fathers and the "removal of the cliff edge earnings threshold for those claiming Carer's Allowance" and said these changes "mark some real wins for families and carers" and may signal "a growing recognition from within the Treasury of the value of unpaid care and the importance of supporting parents and carers as a cost of living measure".

What has the response been from political parties?

Conservative Party

In her response to the Chancellor’s speech, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the Budget was "simply not enough—not good enough, not strong enough, and not bold enough", saying "Labour's Britain" has "no economic resilience" and that the Chancellor "has delayed until tomorrow difficult decisions that he should have taken today".

Speaking to the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4, Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith said the Chancellor had "ducked the two big decisions" on defence funding and cuts to welfare spending and described welfare spending as "the biggest out of control part" of government finances.

Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the Budget will be "defined more by Labour's red lines on Europe and the Conservatives' Brexit red tape than by faster growth, saying the "biggest single thing the Government could do to fix our economy is to fix our trading relationship with Europe and take us back into the single market and a customs union". He added that until such measures are taken, any Budget "will just be tinkering around the edges".

Reform UK

Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK described the Budget as a "lost opportunity", saying the Chancellor "has just not had the courage or the strength" to address "a financial crisis and an energy crisis".

Green Party

Green Party Treasury spokesperson Dr Ellie Chowns described the Budget as "a business-as-usual Budget" which "failed to engage with the real issues facing our country" such as "properly taxing extreme wealth and profits, making essentials genuinely and permanently affordable, or investing in our long-term climate resilience". The response also criticised the lack of "discussion of the climate crisis", saying the Chancellor "doubled down on fossil fuels, balancing the books on the assumption that climate-wrecking Rosebank oilfield will be approved".

SNP

In First Minister's Questions in the Scottish Parliament, SNP leader and Scottish First Minister, John Swinney, said the Budget would reduce the Scottish Government’s budget "in real terms by 1.3%", saying this was "equivalent to a £550 million reduction in revenue funding".

Writing on X, John Swiney said that the Budget failed "to meet the moment” and treated Scotland “as an afterthought".

Plaid Cymru

In a statement, Elin Jones, Plaid Cymru MS and Cabinet Minister for Finance in the Welsh Government, said the Budget represents a "real-terms cut" to funding for Wales, "not new money that improves our position", saying on "rail, fiscal flexibilities and public services, Wales has been ignored again".

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin MP Chris Hazzard said the Budget demonstrated "the British government doubling down on their approach of underfunding the North, and valuing our public workers and services here as less than those in Manchester, Cardiff and Edinburgh", saying if Northern Ireland were "funded on the same basis as Wales, we would have an extra £1 billion a year for public services. Compared to Scotland, that figure rises to £3 billion".

Democratic Unionist Party

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Treasury spokesman, Sammy Wilson, described the Budget as "inadequate", saying there "does not appear to be a willingness to address" increased borrowing and growing debt, though welcomed the freeze on fuel duty and "a £270 million uplift as a Barnett consequential" for the Northern Ireland Executive.