Will new Chancellor Sunak need to postpone the Budget?

NEW Chancellor Rishi Sunak could delay the date of next month’s Budget to give himself more time to prepare, Government figures say.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps revealed ministers had still not been told whether the Budget would go ahead on March 11, following Sajid Javid’s resignation.

He told Sky News that the new Chancellor ‘may want time’ before he delivers his set-piece speech.

Mr Sunak, previously the Treasury Chief Secretary, was catapulted into the top job after Mr Javid dramatically quit in last week’s Cabinet reshuffle.

In an appearance on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Mr Shapps added: ‘The guy’s only been in place for a few days, let’s give him a few days to decide on the date.’

But the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, said: ‘Any delay in the Budget will send out alarm bells that a major change of economic policy is now being planned without any democratic legitimacy.’

Further delays could stop the Office for Budget Responsibility – which monitors the Government’s financial performance – from complying with its legal requirement of publishing two forecasts in the financial year.

Mr Javid’s departure followed a series of well-publicised clashes with Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings, who wants to relax constraints on public spending.

Yesterday Mr Shapps denied that Mr Cummings was now ‘all powerful’ in Whitehall, pointing to last week’s decision to approve the HS rail project – which Mr Cummings opposed.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Johnson has shelved plans for a ‘mansion tax’ on owners of expensive homes after Mr Javid’s resignation, along with plans for a nationwide revaluation of homes, which could have left millions with higher council tax bills.