GBP flows: Little scope for GBP impact from the UK Budget

The UK Chancellor is currently making the UK Budget speech. While this attracts a lot of press focus, in practice it is unlikely to make much difference to monetary policy or GBP. There may be a small net giveway in the form of a cut in National insurance contributions, but there is limited scope for this given the fairly gloomy growth outlook and high debt interest payments. So we wouldn’t expect any significant GBP impact, especially since whatever the Chancellor announces, he is unlikely to be in office this time next year, so there may well be a completely different fiscal picture announced by then.