Pre-budget report to be scrapped

Chancellor George Osborne is to scrap this year's pre-Budget report in order to save Treasury resources, replacing it with an autumn statement containing new forecasts.

According to the Financial Times, this will be unveiled in late November or early December and will feature official economic predictions from the Office for Budget Responsibility, as well as spending plans and consultation papers.

The pre-Budget report was introduced by Gordon Brown in 1997. It is believed that Mr Osborne's predecessor Alistair Darling wanted to abandon it when he was chancellor and focus on one Budget per year instead.

Now the incumbent chancellor has taken this step, preferring instead to place emphasis on the comprehensive spending review next month, which will set departmental budgets until the end of the parliament.

Paul Johnson, a Treasury official under Gordon Brown, said: "The pre-Budget report was a useful thing in principle, but mostly it was an opportunity for the chancellor to have a second set-piece event and hoover up a whole host of announcements from across government."

The last pre-Budget report was announced by Labour's Alistair Darling in December 2010 and was followed by a Budget in March this year. Following the general election in May, Mr Osborne delivered an emergency Budget in June.