# Jeremy Hunt
**Jeremy Hunt** is a British Conservative politician who served as [Chancellor of the Exchequer](https://www.edgepedia.org/chancellor-of-the-exchequer) from October 2022 to July 2024, after an earlier stint as Health Secretary. His chancellorship is defined by the reversal of [Kwasi Kwarteng](https://www.edgepedia.org/kwasi-kwarteng)'s September 2022 mini-budget, a £55 billion fiscal consolidation, and the a return to [Office for Budget Responsibility](https://www.edgepedia.org/office-for-budget-responsibility) forecasting after a period in which the government announced tax changes without an independent forecast.[1](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-autumn-statement-2022-speech) • [2](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9643/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Chancellor | October 2022 to July 2024; appointed during the mini-budget market crisis[3](https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/jeremy-hunt-takes-his-biggest-role-yet-uk-finance-minister-2022-10-17/) |
| 17 October 2022 reversal | Cancelled mini-budget tax measures worth around £32 billion a year; kept the National Insurance reversal and the stamp duty cut[2](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9643/) |
| Fiscal rules | Underlying debt falling as a share of GDP by the fifth year of a rolling five-year period; borrowing below 3% of GDP over the same period[1](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-autumn-statement-2022-speech) |
| Autumn Statement 2022 | £55 billion consolidation, including £25 billion of tax rises; borrowing forecast to fall from 7.1% of GDP in 2022-23 to 2.4% by 2027-28[1](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-autumn-statement-2022-speech) • [4](https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/press-releases/hunt-combines-george-osborne-rhetoric-and-gordon-brown-policy-announcing-energy-support-today-and-tougher-times-tomorrow-with-top-heavy-tax-rises-and-backloaded-spending-cuts/) |
| Threshold freeze | Extended to six years, a £40 billion a year tax rise; by 2027, £1.90 raised in taxes for every £1 of National Insurance cut[5](https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/WP202424-The-Conservatives-and-the-Economy-2010%E2%80%9324.pdf) • [6](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68516710) |
| National Insurance cuts | 12% to 10% announced in November 2023 (£10 billion) and 10% to 8% from April 2024; OBR scored the combined cuts as equivalent to 200,000 more people in work[5](https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/WP202424-The-Conservatives-and-the-Economy-2010%E2%80%9324.pdf) • [7](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/spring-budget-2024-speech) |
| Tax burden | Forecast to reach around 36% of GDP by the end of the parliament, the highest sustained level since 1950-51[8](https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/cutting-tax-cuts/) |
## Reversing the mini-budget
Hunt was appointed [Chancellor](https://www.edgepedia.org/chancellor) on 14 October 2022, after Kwarteng's mini-budget had triggered a sharp negative market reaction. The mini-budget had announced permanent tax changes reducing revenues by over 1% of GDP without any OBR forecast, one of the reasons investors cited for losing confidence in the plans.[3](https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/jeremy-hunt-takes-his-biggest-role-yet-uk-finance-minister-2022-10-17/) • [9](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10057/) On his appointment the pound rose against the dollar, though government borrowing costs stayed high pending a full statement.[3](https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/jeremy-hunt-takes-his-biggest-role-yet-uk-finance-minister-2022-10-17/)
**The 17 October statement.** Three days into the job, Hunt scrapped most of the roughly £45 billion of unfunded tax promises, canceling measures the Treasury valued at around £32 billion a year.[2](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9643/) • [10](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/17/why-was-most-of-mini-budget-scrapped-what-happens-next-jeremy-hunt) The canceled measures included the planned cut of the basic income tax rate from 20% to 19% in April 2023, which Hunt said would remain at 20% "indefinitely," a 1.25-point dividends tax cut, a VAT-free shopping scheme for non-UK visitors, and a year-long alcohol duty freeze.[11](https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-10-17/debates/68F2BACA-D0F2-4F1C-8A65-8D29D304B6BA/EconomicUpdate) • [2](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9643/) He told the Commons the government could not afford a permanent discretionary increase in borrowing worth £6 billion a year from the basic-rate cut alone.[11](https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-10-17/debates/68F2BACA-D0F2-4F1C-8A65-8D29D304B6BA/EconomicUpdate)
Not everything was reversed. Retained from the mini-budget were the reversal of the [National Insurance](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-insurance) increase and cancellation of the Health and Social Care Levy (costing about £18.7 billion), the stamp duty cut (£2.1 billion a year), the £1 million Annual Investment Allowance from April 2023, and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme increases.[2](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9643/) • [10](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/17/why-was-most-of-mini-budget-scrapped-what-happens-next-jeremy-hunt) The Resolution Foundation calculated that the reversals, including Hunt's separate scrapping of Sunak's planned 1p basic-rate cut, totalled £32.3 billion, which on its own would be the largest tax-raising fiscal announcement since 1993; the typical household's mini-budget tax cut for the following year fell from £500 to £290, and for the richest tenth of households from £5,380 to £1,650.[8](https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/cutting-tax-cuts/)
## Fiscal rules and OBR oversight
The mini-budget's defining institutional failure was procedural: the OBR would have been able to produce a forecast, but the Chancellor did not request one.[2](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9643/) Hunt committed to a medium-term fiscal plan on 31 October 2022 based on OBR forecasts, with debt falling as a share of the economy.[11](https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-10-17/debates/68F2BACA-D0F2-4F1C-8A65-8D29D304B6BA/EconomicUpdate)
**Hunt's two rules.** At the Autumn Statement he set: underlying debt must fall as a percentage of GDP by the fifth year of a rolling five-year period, and public sector borrowing must be below 3% of GDP over the same period.[1](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-autumn-statement-2022-speech) He also extended the forecast horizon from three to five years, a change he says independent economists welcomed because it avoided sharper cuts and let long-term reforms count within the fiscal window.[12](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-07/Jeremy%20Hunt%202025.pdf) The November 2022 forecast showed underlying debt peaking at 97.6% of GDP in 2025-26 and falling to 97.3% by 2027-28, meeting the debt rule by a narrow margin.[1](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-autumn-statement-2022-speech)
**Were the rules met?** By the Spring Budget 2024 the OBR forecast borrowing falling from 4.2% of GDP in 2023-24 to 1.2% in 2028-29, meeting the borrowing rule three years early.[7](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/spring-budget-2024-speech) After Hunt left office, his successor [Rachel Reeves](https://www.edgepedia.org/rachel-reeves) modified the fiscal rules to allow more capital spending while, in Hunt's account, pursuing the same spending-caps path he had set.[12](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-07/Jeremy%20Hunt%202025.pdf) Parliament also legislated a "fiscal lock": the Budget Responsibility Bill requires the government to request an OBR forecast before making fiscally significant announcements, with the OBR producing its own assessment if the government fails to; temporary emergency measures are exempt.[9](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10057/)
## The consolidation: Autumn Statement 2022 to Spring Budget 2024
The Autumn Statement 2022 announced a £55 billion a year tightening, moving the UK, in the Resolution Foundation's phrase, from the biggest tax cuts in 50 years to the biggest fiscal tightening since 2010 in a few weeks.[4](https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/press-releases/hunt-combines-george-osborne-rhetoric-and-gordon-brown-policy-announcing-energy-support-today-and-tougher-times-tomorrow-with-top-heavy-tax-rises-and-backloaded-spending-cuts/) About £25 billion came from tax rises, including reductions in the amounts people can earn before paying the 45p rate, capital gains tax, and dividend tax, which largely reversed the remaining £18 billion of tax cuts from [Liz Truss](https://www.edgepedia.org/liz-truss)'s tenure.[4](https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/press-releases/hunt-combines-george-osborne-rhetoric-and-gordon-brown-policy-announcing-energy-support-today-and-tougher-times-tomorrow-with-top-heavy-tax-rises-and-backloaded-spending-cuts/) Public services received protected increases: an extra £3.3 billion for the NHS in each of the next two years and £2.3 billion per year for schools.[1](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-autumn-statement-2022-speech)
**National Insurance cuts.** In November 2023 Hunt cut employee National Insurance from 12% to 10%, costing £10 billion and more than reversing [George Osborne](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-osborne)'s 2011 increase.[5](https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/WP202424-The-Conservatives-and-the-Economy-2010%E2%80%9324.pdf) In the Spring Budget 2024 he cut it again, by 2p from 10% to 8% from 6 April 2024.[7](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/spring-budget-2024-speech) The OBR scored the autumn cut as equivalent to 94,000 more people in work, and the combined cuts as equivalent to 200,000 more people in work, adding 0.4% to GDP.[13](https://www.ft.com/content/be120921-c2ab-4bfb-8766-980109a292fc) • [7](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/spring-budget-2024-speech) Hunt also announced childcare reform costing about £6 billion a year gross, which after OBR scoring of its labor-supply effects had a net exchequer cost of £600 million a year.[12](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-07/Jeremy%20Hunt%202025.pdf)
## By the numbers: fiscal drag and the tax burden
The central arithmetic of Hunt's chancellorship is that headline tax cuts were financed by a larger, quieter tax rise. Sunak had frozen income tax and National Insurance thresholds for four years in March 2021; Hunt extended the freeze by two years in Autumn Statement 2022, so it runs for six years in total.[14](https://ifs.org.uk/publications/policy-risks-fiscal-outlook) With inflation high, the IFS estimated that the freeze could raise £40 billion a year, possibly £52 billion in 2027-28, 6½ times the £8 billion expected when first announced.[5](https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/WP202424-The-Conservatives-and-the-Economy-2010%E2%80%9324.pdf) • [14](https://ifs.org.uk/publications/policy-risks-fiscal-outlook) The BBC, using OBR calculations, put it at £1.90 raised in taxes for every £1 of National Insurance cut by 2027, and called the fiscal drag the biggest single tax rise in 45 years, since [Geoffrey Howe](https://www.edgepedia.org/geoffrey-howe) nearly doubled VAT in 1979.[6](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68516710)
**Who pays.** The freeze will undo two-thirds of the coalition-era increase in the personal allowance and nearly double the number of higher-rate taxpayers; the IFS projects a record two-thirds of adults paying income tax and a record one-sixth paying higher-rate tax.[5](https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/WP202424-The-Conservatives-and-the-Economy-2010%E2%80%9324.pdf) • [14](https://ifs.org.uk/publications/policy-risks-fiscal-outlook) Hunt himself described the freeze as a "back-door tax" but the most effective way of raising revenue people could broadly live with.[12](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-07/Jeremy%20Hunt%202025.pdf) The Resolution Foundation forecast that the tax burden would reach around 36% of GDP by the end of the parliament, up from 33% and the highest sustained level since 1950-51.[8](https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/cutting-tax-cuts/)
**Spending.** Hunt's plans imply around £15 billion less day-to-day spending in 2027-28 than Sunak's 2022 Spring Statement, with unprotected departments facing cuts of 1.5% a year, or £9.4 billion in today's terms, by 2027-28; planned investment spending was lowered by £13 billion in 2027-28.[14](https://ifs.org.uk/publications/policy-risks-fiscal-outlook) Hunt says he filled a "£72 billion black hole" partly by freezing capital spending in cash terms, a real-terms reduction.[12](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-07/Jeremy%20Hunt%202025.pdf)
## Comparisons: Kwarteng, Osborne and Reeves
The National Insurance cuts more than reversed Osborne's 2011 increase, but were far smaller than the revenue raised by threshold freezes.[5](https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/WP202424-The-Conservatives-and-the-Economy-2010%E2%80%9324.pdf) The fiscal drag has been likened to Howe's 1979 VAT rise in scale.[6](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68516710) The trajectory Hunt left behind continued: the October 2024 Budget under Reeves raised revenues by £36.2 billion a year on average, with tax forecast to reach a historic high of 38.2% of GDP in 2029-30.[15](https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/OBR_Economic_and_fiscal_outlook_Oct_2024.pdf) Hunt states he supports Reeves's rule change allowing more capital spending and notes she is pursuing the same spending-caps path he set, which Labour had criticized as austerity.[12](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-07/Jeremy%20Hunt%202025.pdf)
## Before the Treasury: the health record
As Health Secretary, Hunt presided over NHS spending growth of roughly 1% above inflation annually in the early years of his tenure.[16](https://inews.co.uk/news/jeremy-hunt-what-do-nhs-chancellor-period-health-secretary-explained-1918447) His repeated claim of £10 billion extra annual NHS funding drew a finding from a cross-party committee of MPs in July 2016 that he had broken his funding pledges, judging the real extra funding closer to £4.5 billion than the claimed £8.4 billion by 2020-21; Hunt admitted the £10 billion figure included the previous year, boosting it by £1.5 billion.[16](https://inews.co.uk/news/jeremy-hunt-what-do-nhs-chancellor-period-health-secretary-explained-1918447) As Chancellor he later pushed an NHS long-term workforce plan and a productivity program committing the NHS to 2% annual productivity growth in return for £3.4 billion to overhaul IT systems.[12](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-07/Jeremy%20Hunt%202025.pdf) His 2024 witness statement to the Thirlwall Inquiry reported that since 2010 the stillbirth rate fell 23% and neonatal mortality 30%, while the maternal death rate rose 26%.[17](https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0107827.pdf)
## References
1. [The Autumn Statement 2022 speech, HM Treasury](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-autumn-statement-2022-speech)
2. [The 17 October 2022 fiscal statement: Summary and background, House of Commons Library](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9643/)
3. [Jeremy Hunt takes on his biggest role yet as UK finance minister, Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/jeremy-hunt-takes-his-biggest-role-yet-uk-finance-minister-2022-10-17/)
4. [Hunt combines George Osborne rhetoric and Gordon Brown policy, Resolution Foundation](https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/press-releases/hunt-combines-george-osborne-rhetoric-and-gordon-brown-policy-announcing-energy-support-today-and-tougher-times-tomorrow-with-top-heavy-tax-rises-and-backloaded-spending-cuts/)
5. [The Conservatives and the Economy, 2010–24, IFS Working Paper](https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/WP202424-The-Conservatives-and-the-Economy-2010%E2%80%9324.pdf)
6. [Jeremy Hunt's Budget was more radical than it looked, BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68516710)
7. [Spring Budget 2024 speech, HM Treasury](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/spring-budget-2024-speech)
8. [Cutting tax cuts, Resolution Foundation](https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/cutting-tax-cuts/)
9. [Budget Responsibility Bill, House of Commons Library](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10057/)
10. [Why was most of mini-budget scrapped and what happens next?, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/17/why-was-most-of-mini-budget-scrapped-what-happens-next-jeremy-hunt)
11. [Hansard – Economic Update, 17 October 2022](https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-10-17/debates/68F2BACA-D0F2-4F1C-8A65-8D29D304B6BA/EconomicUpdate)
12. [Ministers Reflect: Jeremy Hunt, Institute for Government](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-07/Jeremy%20Hunt%202025.pdf)
13. [UK Budget 2024: the chancellor's speech in full, Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/be120921-c2ab-4bfb-8766-980109a292fc)
14. [Policy risks to the fiscal outlook, IFS](https://ifs.org.uk/publications/policy-risks-fiscal-outlook)
15. [Economic and fiscal outlook – CP 1169, OBR, October 2024](https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/OBR_Economic_and_fiscal_outlook_Oct_2024.pdf)
16. [Jeremy Hunt's record as health secretary, inews](https://inews.co.uk/news/jeremy-hunt-what-do-nhs-chancellor-period-health-secretary-explained-1918447)
17. [Thirlwall Inquiry – Witness statement of Jeremy Hunt](https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0107827.pdf)
18. [Jeremy Hunt extracts from Economy, Welfare and Public Services debate, 22 July 2024](https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/jeremy-hunt/debate/Commons/2024-07-22/debates/67C8D6FC-BDA4-47FF-BECC-537443D53120/EconomyWelfareAndPublicServices)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Economics and business › Finance › Finance ministries and public finance administration*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 10, 2026; Oct 11, 2026 · Last review: Oct 10, 2026*
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