Hunt was under pressure to cut taxes from those on the right of his party, but the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had forecast that the UK economy would grow much more slowly over the coming two years than had previously been predicted.

However, Hunt told the House that because the economy had "turned a corner" there would be some scope for tax cuts, and he described his statement as setting out 110 measures for growth.

[4] The statement was preceded by the 2023 State Opening of Parliament, which took place on 7 November, and saw the government outline its legislative programme for the year ahead.

[13] On 19 November, and during an appearance on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Hunt said that the priority of the autumn statement would be to remove barriers to growth, but would not rule out cuts to income tax.

[14] On 20 November, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it would be possible to make sensible tax cuts after the government met its target of halving inflation by the end of 2023.

Inflation was predicted to fall to 2.8% by the end of 2024, before reaching the Bank of England's preferred target of 2% in 2025, while living standards were not expected to return to the pre-pandemic levels until 2027–28.

[19] Addressing the House of Commons, Hunt said his autumn statement would contain 110 growth measures, with the government having "taken difficult decisions to put our economy back on track".

[29] Drew Hendry, the Scottish National Party Treasury spokesman at Westminster, described the statement as "too little, too late for the squeezed majority of households", and branded it a "Tory con trick".

[30] Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Treasury and Business, described the Autumn Statement as "a deception from the Chancellor after years of unfair tax hikes".

[31] Shevaun Haviland, Director General of the British Chamber of Commerce said the statement had "provided some welcome remedies" for business, and at a time when businesses "need certainty and security from the Government in the difficult months ahead",[31] while Rain Newton-Smith, Chief Executive of the Confederation of British Industry, said the Chancellor was "right to prioritise 'game-changing' interventions that will fire the economy" such as making permanent the tax-break scheme for the purchase of equipment.

[32] Appearing before the Treasury Select Committee on 28 November, Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, told MPs the spending plans represented "a very big fiscal risk" because the figures were based on projected savings and consequently they contained a level of "uncertainty".