George Osborne’s 2016 Budget expected to feature more austerity

Chancellor George Osborne is expected to announce further cuts and tax rises in his budget today, despite the fact official figures are expected to show he is missing his own fiscal targets.

Updates to growth and borrowing projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility are expected to show Osborne has missed his goal to cut debt as a proportion of GDP this year, according to analysts at the Financial Times.

Osborne is expected to warn the “storm clouds are gathering again” as he sets his spending plans to the House of Commons later, setting out an extra £4bn spending cuts.

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Ahead of the budget he warned uncertainty in the global economy will mean the UK has to “act now rather than pay later” in making further cuts.

He is expected to announce a £1.5bn package for English schools and £300m for transport projects.

The SNP’s deputy leader and economy spokesperson Stewart Hosie said the chancellor had “failed on his own terms” and should invest to grow the economy.

“This is a Chancellor who remains stubbornly wedded to his failed austerity project – continuing to cut tens of billions more than is necessary to run a balanced budget – despite all the damage that it has done to the economy, our public services and the poorest and most vulnerable in our society,” he said.

Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said Osborne had widened the “productivity gap” over successive budgets.

“We will measure the Chancellor on failures, fairness and his plans for the future. He has abjectly failed every measure he has set himself, produces budgets that help the richest at the expense of the rest and has no vision for the future. He is a political Chancellor more concerned with his pitch for PM than the needs of the country,” he said.