Why Reeves may tweak the fiscal rules to borrow more

As she makes her final preparations for the Budget, Rachel Reeves has already indicated that she will present a package of tax increases and cuts to public spending plans amounting to around £40bn per annum over the next few years.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Those have proved controversial but just as important, albeit more technical, are the changes she is making to the rules about controlling the national debt. Even before Wednesday's big event, she has already announced some potentially radical changes...

What is Reeves planning?

A substantive change to the policy followed by the government led by Rishi Sunak, which was that the national debt, as a share of the national income, should be falling by the end of a rolling five-year trajectory. This was widely criticised for being too rubbery - the rolling target was rather like chasing a rainbowand prone to politically convenient adjustments.

Instead, Reeves is looking at three changes. Two were in the Labour election manifesto: that the current budget moves into balance, so that day-to-day costs are met by revenues, and that debt must be falling as a share of the economy by the fifth year of the forecast.