Here is your regular reminder that the UK’s fiscal rules mean very little, even as there has been huge focus on whether Andy Burnham would commit to them or not (he did).

Debt (changed in 2024 for political reasons to be defined as PSNFL) to GDP just needs to be falling in the third year of the forecast relative to the second.

At present that means arbitrarily comparing forecasts for FY29/30 to FY28/29. This is completely based on tax and spend policy which is currently legislated for but might look nothing like policy that will actually be delivered in those two years.

Current spending (that’s ex. investment expenditures) needs to be in surplus come the third year of the forecast, so that’s in FY29/30 too. Again, based on policy that might look nothing like what is delivered.

The beauty of rolling targets is that they always move, so they are never binding, so they mean nothing :)