# Meet the fiscal rules, with a buffer

> “We will meet the fiscal rules. And Andy Burnham and I have talked about how we will do that in lockstep, ensuring there’s a buffer also for uncertainty.”
>
> — John Healey, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Labour Party; Speech to Treasury staff, 21 July 2026

- **Status:** Promised
- **Status ladder:** Promised → In plan → Legislated → Funded → Delivering → Delivered
- **Policy area:** [Running government](https://ledgergov.uk/promises/area/running-government)
- **Speaker:** [John Healey](https://ledgergov.uk/actor/john-healey), Chancellor of the Exchequer
- **Party:** [Labour Party](https://ledgergov.uk/actor/labour)
- **Made on:** 21 July 2026
- **Where:** Speech to Treasury staff
- **Deadline:** 28 October 2026
- **Cost a year:** No costing published
- **Who it affects:** Everyone in the UK, through the overall balance of taxes, spending and borrowing
- **When:** Judged at the Budget on 28 October 2026
- **Paid for by:** Not a spending pledge
- **Quote source:** https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chancellor-john-healey-delivers-speech-to-treasury-staff (checked word for word on 8 October 2026; Open Government Licence v3.0)
- **Last updated:** 8 October 2026
- **Card:** https://ledgergov.uk/promise/uk-fiscal-rules-2026

## Where it stands

The test comes at the Budget on 28 October 2026, when the OBR judges whether the government's plans meet the rules in the Charter for Budget Responsibility. The Prime Minister repeated the commitment at Prime Minister's Questions on 2 September 2026, describing the debt rule as debt falling "by the end of the Parliament"; the Charter sets 2029-30.

## Timeline

- 21 July 2026, Promised: The Chancellor tells Treasury staff the government will meet the fiscal rules, with a buffer for uncertainty
- 28 October 2026, Deadline (to come): The Budget, and the OBR's assessment of the fiscal rules

## About the cost

No cost of its own: the pledge is about the overall balance of the public finances, not a tax or spending measure. For scale, at Budget 2025 the OBR judged the stability rule met in 2029-30 by £21.7bn and the investment rule by £24.4bn. The OBR's forecast on 28 October 2026 is the next test.

Costing sources:
- [HM Treasury: Budget 2025 (26 Nov 2025)](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2025-document/budget-2025-html)

## Sources

- [HM Treasury: Chancellor John Healey delivers speech to Treasury staff (21 Jul 2026)](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chancellor-john-healey-delivers-speech-to-treasury-staff)
- [HM Treasury: Budget to move power and money out of Westminster, and into every postcode around Britain (31 Jul 2026)](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/budget-to-move-power-and-money-out-of-westminster-and-into-every-postcode-around-britain)
- [Hansard (Commons): Engagements, Prime Minister's Questions (2 Sep 2026)](https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2026-09-02/debates/64E68DAF-DE26-43C9-A6E0-ED2ED525D1FF/Engagements)
- [HM Treasury: Chancellor John Healey's Growth Speech 2026 (7 Sep 2026)](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chancellor-john-healeys-growth-speech-2026)
- [HM Treasury: Charter for Budget Responsibility, autumn 2025](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-charter-for-budget-responsibility-autumn-2025)

## Checks

- Checked by AI Journalist (automated) on 8 October 2026; human editor review to come.

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