ABSTRACT
Traditionally the Chancellor prepares his budget on his own, only consulting colleagues individually on a need to know basis. The Cabinet learns of its contents at a special meeting on the morning of budget day (or sometimes the previous day). Changes were made by the Cabinet to budgets in 1947 and 1962 (Wilson 1971, Boyd Carpenter 1980) but today the chance of making any last minute alteration is minimal, especially since the ‘financial statement and budget report’ (the ‘red book’) setting out the budget details goes to print several days previously (Young and Sloman 1984). Wilson’s Cabinet disliked the Selective Employment Tax in 1966, and before the mini-budget in July 1974 it criticised the regional employment premium, urging instead direct investment in the construction industry (Castle 1980) but on neither occasion did ministers seriously imagine that the Chancellor would change his proposals at that late stage. Before Howe’s first three budgets there was ‘no significant prior discussion’ by Cabinet, and when in 1981 the Chancellor sprang tax increases of £4 billion on his colleagues they complained bitterly but could not stop them (Howe 1994).
