Has Healey’s military-style budget secrecy really played out so differently to past budgets?

The public has been told repeatedly that John Healey is so concerned about budget leaks that he has set up defence-style "compartmentalisation" to prevent the Treasury's financial secrets escaping. However, despite these heightened security measures, many of the budget's announcements have already been leaked from a mixture of authorised and unauthorised sources.

Leaked Budget Details

It emerged well in advance that there will be a higher tax on banks – a deeply market-sensitive policy – and a package of energy support for the most vulnerable. The budget will also include billions of pounds in extra defence spending, directed towards the British Business Bank and National Wealth Fund, as well as a £1bn crackdown on online VAT sales, with big retailers such as Amazon, eBay and Temu to be responsible for collecting what is due from smaller merchants.

Stories have also indicated the level of headroom the chancellor will be looking at – in the region of £15bn – known in political circles as "pitch rolling" to avoid alarming markets or the public. The Treasury and No 10 have also undertaken their traditional stream of embargoed announcements by press release in the days before the fiscal event.

Purpose of Security Measures

Former Treasury advisers believe the rigmarole around budget security is partly designed to deter civil servants and gossiping MPs from thinking they can embark on unauthorised chatter before a policy is ready. They also say it is unhelpful for the chancellor to produce a hermetically sealed budget, which could cause a backlash over surprise measures – in the markets, the media, among the government's own MPs and the wider public.

Historical Context

It is often the less-trailed policies that have tended to go wrong, from George Osborne's pasty tax in 2012 to Philip Hammond's surprise national insurance hike for the self-employed in 2017 that had to be abandoned within seven days after a furore among Conservative MPs about breaking their manifesto promise.

Healey has been shutting down speculation about various tax rises, showing he has begun to see the virtue in expectation management and limiting surprises on the big day. There may still be a few fiscal "rabbits out of the hat" on the day, as Healey seeks to combine a "steady-as-she-goes" budget with some eye-catching measures designed to show the public that the government is on their side.

But if the Treasury really has aimed for military levels of secrecy around its budget, the Ministry of Defence might have something to worry about.