UK’s Reeves Hints at Bigger Fiscal Buffer as Budget Takes Shape

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves gave the clearest signal yet that she will boost her wafer-thin fiscal buffer at next month’s budget to put the public finances on a more stable footing, as she laid out the broad contours of her policy plans in Washington.

In a Bloomberg TV interview on Friday, Reeves said that increasing the £9.9 billion ($13.3 billion) of headroom she left against her fiscal rules at the spring statement in March would help “absorb shocks” in an increasingly unstable world.

Rachel Reeves

Photographer: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg

Doing so would require “trade-offs,” though, as more tax rises and spending cuts ...