Former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has predicted that Rachel Reeves will need to raise taxes in a spring budget.

Speaking on GB News, Kwasi Kwarteng said: “I'm afraid I think it'll probably get worse. We'll see the GDP figure tomorrow, and of course, people will be looking at that.

“The OBR had quite lavish expectations about growth this year. I think it was 2 per cent, which looks a long way away.

“They'll revise that down in March, and that will create a funding gap, because as your growth stalls, you don't get as much tax revenue in.

“She will have that unenviable choice as to whether to borrow more money or raise taxes.

“And I don't think the markets will allow that.

“Labour chancellors cutting public spending is politically very difficult for them.

“John McDonnell has already said that this would be politically unacceptable, political suicide, I think was his phrase.

“So it seems almost inevitable to me that she will come back to the House of Commons in some form of sort of spring statement. They'll say it isn't a budget, but they'll do it that way.

“So they came in very negatively. And actually, you've got to look at what happened in that budget.

“What she did was she increased taxes to the tune of £40billion which was more than they had briefed before.

“And the incidence of the tax, where it fell, was on, essentially on business owners.”