The 1981 United Kingdom budget was delivered by Geoffrey Howe, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on 10 March 1981.

[1] The budget represented a strongly monetarist response to the stagflation and high government borrowing which the UK was suffering at the time.

[2] The budget was given during a time of significant economic malaise in the United Kingdom, with unemployment having increased by almost one million in the prior 12 months and inflation running at around 15%.

[1] The leader of the Opposition Michael Foot said of it "This is a budget to produce over three million unemployed".

[1] A group of 364 economists wrote a letter to The Times newspaper which was strongly critical of the budget and expressed the view that there was "no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence" for its measures, and that it threatened the UK's "social and political stability".