The financial hole is real but the chancellor's still digging

So there's a s£22bn "black hole" in Britain's public finances even larger than the £20bn we had been led to expect would be unveiled in the chancellor's Commons statement.

- JAMES MOORE

It was scarcely credible for Reeves to pretend for so long that it was a surprise to find that the numbers didn’t add up. Everyone knows that Britain is in a fiscal bind. Paul Johnson, head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that the “last government left public finances in a bad state”.

Yet some of the hole is of Reeves’s own making, with roughly half coming from her decision to agree to accept the recommendations of the various public sector pay review bodies in full. This, said Reeves, was “the right decision for the people who work in and use public services”. She added: “Giving hardworking staff the rises they deserve [ensures] we can recruit and retain the staff we need.”

Now, this is a perfectly credible position to take. And it is one that ought to help with the delivery of improved public services. But, while justified, the rises were always going to need paying for, either by tax rises or by cuts elsewhere.