Autumn Budget 2024: fact checked

On Wednesday 30 October, Labour will deliver a Budget for the first time in 14 years. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves—who, as the first female chancellor, will also be the first woman to deliver the Budget—will come to the despatch box after Prime Minister’s Questions, at around 12:30 pm. 

The proceedings will be broadcast live and in full on Parliament’s website, as well as on BBC Parliament. We also expect other news channels, such as BBC News and Sky News, to cover the Budget live as well. 

What have we already looked at?

We’ve already written about two things you may have heard mentioned quite a bit in recent coverage of Labour’s plans—the government’s definition of “working people”, and Ms Reeves’ claim that Labour inherited an unexpected £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances this year. How will we fact check the Budget? 

Full Fact’s fact checkers will be following the Autumn Budget live, and will scrutinise claims made by the chancellor and MPs in the subsequent debate. We will highlight any statements that we think are wrong, misleading or need more context, and will aim to post immediate updates on X (formerly Twitter) where we can. However, some claims may need more time to investigate. 

You can get involved too—if you spot anything you think we should be investigating, please tag the @FullFact account on X and we’ll do our best to take a look. 

What is the Budget?

In the Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer presents a statement on the nation’s finances and economic forecasts to the House of Commons, as well as any changes in taxation. The Budget also outlines departmental spending and plans for the funding of certain policies. 

After Ms Reeves presents the Autumn Budget, we expect the Leader of the Opposition, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, to respond in the Commons.

MPs then usually spend four days debating aspects of the Budget. Following this, the government presents the Finance Bill, which, if passed, will put into law the government’s new plans on taxation. 

Though governments only deliver one Budget a year—many supplement this with a spending review between Budgets—this will be the second Budget delivered by a government this year, after the then-Conservative government delivered its Spring Budget in March. However, as the general election was called a couple of months after this was delivered, and the Conservatives left office at this point, many of the policies and plans it contained were not enacted. 

How we ‘live fact check’ 

Once the Autumn Budget is under way, our team of fact checkers will be monitoring claims in real time, with the help of our AI tools. We’re a small team, so it’s not possible for us to check every single claim, but if we can publish a quick verdict, we will (initially on X). 

Some claims can be more complicated to check than they first appear, or require further research. If claims do require further investigation, we’ll dig into them in more detail after the Budget statement has ended.

When Parliament is sitting we ‘live fact check’ Prime Minister’s Questions each week, and we’ve got a lot of experience checking other big political events as they happen live.

During the 2024 general election campaign, we live fact checked several events, including a number of debates featuring representatives and leaders from multiple parties, as well as head-to-head events with Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Sunak.

We also live fact checked TV debates during previous general elections, and in the 2022 Conservative leadership contest.