The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, gave an important speech at the Labour Party conference last week, in which she appeared to shift tone to speak more positively about the economy.

Recently she spoke about the upcoming Budget being a “painful” one. As a result, there has been speculation on where spending will be cut and tax raised, which may have affected consumer confidence.

However, the Chancellor’s speech at the party conference concentrated on the positive results she expects to bring to the economy. She plans to grow public spending in real terms as she believes that investment by the government will help the economy to grow. There may be changes upcoming to the rules on government borrowing so that more investment is allowed.

Whether this means that the Budget will not be as painful as we might have been expecting is hard to know. As always, we will keep you posted on the Budget developments.