【每日晨读金融时报】04Sep2025 英语口语听力 附原文及实用单词短语

The Treas­ury is racing to find tax reforms to boost growth amid fears that at least £10bn could be wiped off the gov­ern­ment’s already strained fiscal plan.

Rachel Reeves has ordered offi­cials to identify tax changes that would improve fore­casts from the Office for Budget Respons­ib­il­ity, which are cru­cial to stick­ing to her key fiscal rule.

The watch­dog’s pro­ductiv­ity fore­casts have long been seen as too optim­istic. One Labour offi­cial said a down­grade was “a mat­ter of when, not if”, prompt­ing the chan­cel­lor to search for growth-pro­mot­ing meas­ures that could mit­ig­ate the dam­age.

Some fore­casters are pre­dict­ing that the pro­spect of a pro­ductiv­ity down­grade, coupled with weaker growth driven by the trade war, could help expose a fiscal hole exceed­ing £20bn in the Octo­ber Budget.

Richard Hughes, the chair of the OBR, noted last month that a mere 0.1 per­cent­age point reduc­tion in the pro­ductiv­ity growth fore­cast over five years would wipe out Reeves’ £9.9bn of head­room against her key fiscal rule, which com­mits her to match­ing day-to-day spend­ing with tax rev­en­ues by 2029-30.