Some of the most enduring reforms made by UK chancellors have been to the structures that support economic policy making and announced early on in the life of a new government – from Gordon Brown’s granting independence to the Bank of England in 1997 to George Osborne’s creation of the Office for Budget responsibility in 2010. 

The reforms that Reeves has already proposed, as she begins her chancellorship in 2024, could be similarly transformative. New chancellor, new rules says how strengthening them would give them even more chance of this, and of embedding lasting improvements in a UK fiscal policy making culture that is crying out for change.

Tom Pope, report author and IfG deputy economist, said:

“Rachel Reeves has the opportunity to set her stall out early and secure a lasting legacy by reforming how fiscal policy is made. She has already made welcome commitments to strengthening the role of the OBR and holding only one major fiscal event each year. But she should go further, including by reforming the fiscal rules and committing to a new approach to spending reviews, if she wants to deliver on the new government’s missions and break the cycle of excessive and unstrategic policy tinkering that has undermined her predecessors.”