The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has leaked the Chancellor’s entire Autumn Budget in an “unprecedented” leak which has spooked the stock market.
The OBR has highlighted how bad the Budget is going to be and that the debt share of GDP is to rise to 69% by 2030, as a result gilt yields have plummeted causing chaos in the market.
The leaked Autumn Budget confirms that Rachel Reeve’s key pledge has been downgraded every year from 2026, GDP growth of 1.5% in 2025 and 1.9% next year.
The chancellor, opens her speech saying, “This is deeply disappointing, and a serious error on their part.
“The Office for Budget Responsibility have already made a statement taking full responsibility for their breach.”
Reeve’s will scrap the two-child benefit, this change will come into effect in April 2026, the OBR report states, “The limit restricted the UC child element, which is currently £3,500 per year for second and subsequent children, to two children per family apart from children born prior to 6 April 2017 and those who meet certain exemption criteria.
“Its removal costs £2.3 billion in 2026- 27 and £3.0 billion in 2029-30.
“This includes £300 million by 2029-30 for the cost of an estimated 25,000 additional entitled families making a UC claim as a result of the increase in benefit generosity.”
The lengthy leaked OBR document says the Chancellor has frozen income tac thresholds for three years, even though Reeve’s stated last year that in doing so will “hurt working people.”
The document reads, “A set of personal tax changes which increase receipts by £14.9 billion in 2029-30, including: freezing personal tax and employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) thresholds for three years from 2028-29, which raises £8.0 billion.
The OBR report says the freeze Chancellor will see 780,000 more basic rate, 920,000 more higher rate and there will be 4,000 further additional rate income taxpayers in 2029/2030.
Graeme Stewart, head of public sector at Check Point said, “Accidentally publishing a market sensitive report online in its entirety before the Chancellor has even delivered her statement is a major security breach which warrants a full investigation.
This incident should underline the risks associated with sloppy document management, which could lead to hackers and fraudsters exploiting data leaks to play the markets. There are no excuses for such incidents to occur, and the government needs to initiate a complete rethink of its publication strategy.”
Kenny MacAulay, CEO of accounting software platform Acting Office said, “It’s truly astonishing that such a market sensitive document could find its way online via official channels in advance of the Chancellor’s speech. Basic compliance requirements should be in place to prevent this from happening, and a complete review is required about how and why such a major breach would take place.”
The OBR has said they have launched an investigation into the mistaken autumn Budget release, they have apologised for a “technical error.
The full leaked OBR report can be read here in full.
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