As backdrops to a make-or-break Budget go, Friday’s update on how much money the government is currently borrowing was from from ideal for Rachel Reeves.

According to the Office for National Statistics , some £10 billion more has been put on the Treasury’s tab so far this year than was originally forecast.

Coincidentally, this is almost exactly the same as the amount of spare cash – fiscal headroom in the jargon – that Reeves left herself at last year’s Budget.

Put simply, she has run out of money.

As the chancellor prepares to deliver her second Budget on Wednesday, the figures were further evidence of the deep financial hole in which she finds herself.

Nick Ridpath of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said: “This overshoot is driven by a combination of lower-than-expected tax

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