Rachel Reeves has been accused of making the country's economic situation appear in a worse state than it really was ahead of the budget.

A letter from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), published on Friday, revealed it told the chancellor as early as 17 September that prevailing economic winds meant the £20 billion gap in meeting her self-imposed fiscal rule of not borrowing for day-to-day spending would actually be much smaller.

Later, in October, it informed her that the spending gap had closed altogether and the government would be running a surplus.

Wednesday's budget, which increased taxes by more than £26bn, followed weeks of dire warnings from Ms Reeves that she would have to make "hard choices" to meet her tax and spending commitments.

This included an early morning

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