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IrelandEd Conway's Budget numbers: stronger growth, dearer energy, a record tax burden
Sky News' economics and data editor sets the forecasts the chancellor faces against a target of a £23.6 billion current budget surplus by 2029-30.
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Story of Why this story? One of Sky News's most watched videos since yesterday, with 105,682 views.
The numbers that could decide the Budget: Ed Conway Explains
Things we can learn from the video
Press to jump
- 0:20Spending against receipts from 1996 to 2030: borrowing has filled most of the gap in recent history.
- 2:04The good news: growth since 2022 is stronger than expected, and unemployment is lower than forecast.
- 3:11Revised figures suggest UK productivity per hour is less weak than earlier projections showed.
- 4:08The bad news: higher inflation, rising gas costs and a forecast energy price cap rise in early 2027.
- 5:46The rule: a current budget surplus by 2029-30, projected at £23.6 billion, and how much headroom remains.
- 7:48Long-term view: a record tax burden and national debt above £3 trillion, nearing 100% of GDP.
Before the Budget is delivered, Sky News' Ed Conway has gone through the figures that will shape it, one chart at a time. His explainer is the channel's most watched new video since yesterday, with around 105,000 views.
Conway starts with what he calls the Budget in two lines: government spending and government receipts from 1996 to the Office for Budget Responsibility's projections for 2030. For most of that period, he says, spending has run well above income, and borrowing has filled the gap.
Some of the news is better than the official forecasts expected. Growth since 2022 has been stronger than many predicted, and unemployment is lower than the OBR forecast at the last Budget. Revised productivity figures also look better. "So, this big bugbear for the UK economy that we have weak productivity, maybe it's not quite so weak," Conway says.
The pressures run the other way. Inflation is higher than expected, wholesale gas costs are rising, and a forecast puts the household energy price cap for early 2027 at its highest level since 2023. Conway also shows how lower net migration is expected to reduce tax receipts in the years ahead.
Those figures matter because of the government's fiscal rules. One requires the current budget to move into surplus by 2029-30, and the official baseline projects a surplus of £23.6 billion. Conway then sets out projections from the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies on how much room that leaves for any giveaways.
He ends with two longer trends. The tax burden is "heading up to the highest level on record," he says, and national debt has passed £3 trillion, close to the size of the whole economy.
The comments came in about twice as fast as on a usual first day for the channel. Many viewers want the figures shown per person rather than as national totals. Others take up the migration and tax link, and one asks why a productivity slide credits the Resolution Foundation when Conway mentions the ONS.
A UK public body funded by the Treasury that independently forecasts the economy and analyses the public finances.
More on Wikipedia ›An independent British think tank focused on improving living standards for families on low to middle incomes.
More on Wikipedia ›An independent economic research institute based in London that specialises in UK taxation and public policy.
More on Wikipedia ›The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department reporting directly to Parliament.
More on Wikipedia ›Published on Trari
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- Channel
- Sky News
- Subscribers
- 9,390,000 ▲ 10,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 7,127,909
- Channel views, pace per day
- 2,356,461 (on a normal day: 2,336,806)
- Video published
- October 27, 2026
- Video views so far
- 105,682 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 109,306
The numbers
Conway's explainer leads Sky News' new uploads, and its comment section moved faster than the channel's usual first day.
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