IN FULL: OBR’s March Forecast

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s growth forecast remains a hard pill to swallow for the Chancellor. It slashed its growth projection for 2025-26 from 2% at the Budget to just 1% now. While the Government’s planning reforms offer a slight productivity boost of 0.2% by 2029, the overall growth for 2023-2029 is still 0.5% below what the OBR had forecast in the Budget, and productivity levels are now more than 1% lower.[…] Read the rest