LONDON: British finance minister Philip Hammond is not counting on an improved outlook for the country's public finances to justify a big increase in spending, an aide to Hammond said on Thursday.
"The Treasury isn't assuming any increase or revision of figures," Kwasi Kwarteng, a lawmaker who is Hammond's parliamentary private secretary, an assistant role, said at a panel discussion held by the Resolution Foundation think-tank.
"I don't think that has been factored in by the Treasury and certainly not by the chancellor. There is no sense that we are complacently spending billions ... So that means that the deficit reduction plan is very much on course."
Britain's official budget forecasters are expected to paint a better short-term outlook for the public finances on Tuesday in a half-yearly budget update.
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