New Chancellor confirms Budget will take place next month

The government will not be changing the date of the Budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed.

The Budget is to go ahead as previously scheduled on March 11th.

The news quashes speculation that the fiscal announcement would be delayed after Sunak replaced Sajid Javid as Chancellor following his resignation last week.

Sunak Tweeted: “Cracking on with preparations for my first budget on 11 March.

“It will deliver on the promises we made to the British people – levelling up and unleashing the country’s potential.”

Javid’s shock departure meant he left the Treasury without ever having delivered a budget.

He said he had “no option” but to resign because Prime Minister Boris Johnson attached conditions to him staying in the role which “no self-respecting minister would accept”.

Transport minister Grant Shapps had suggested over the weekend that the Budget could but put back.

In a TV interview he said: “The guy’s only been in place for a few days, let’s give him a few days to decide on the date.”

Mr Shapps said the government had not confirmed the budget would “definitely go ahead on the same date as mentioned before”, but added: “Clearly, we’ll need to have a budget.”

Senior Liberal Democrat Sir Ed Davey accused the government of being “chaotic” following the reshuffle.

He said: “Any delay in the budget will send out alarm bells that a major change of economic policy is now being planned without any democratic legitimacy from the Tory manifesto just weeks ago.”