On Tuesday 29th November the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published its updated forecast for the UK economy. Chancellor George Osborne responded to that forecast in a statement to the House of Commons later on that day.

In the period since the Budget in March a number of consultation papers and discussion documents have been published by HMRC. Draft legislation relating to many of these areas will be published on 6 December 2011. Some of these proposals are summarised here. We will provide an update for you if significant changes are announced on 6 December.

This summary also provides a reminder of other key developments which are to take place from April 2012.

The Chancellor's statement

The Chancellor emphasised that the OBR does not predict a recession in Britain but they have revised down their short term growth prospects for the country. He also made clear that the OBR central forecast assumes 'the euro finds a way through the current crisis'.

General measures

The Autumn Statement sets out the actions the Government will take in two main areas:

• protecting the economy and
• building a stronger economy for the future.

In order to maintain economic stability and meet its fiscal rules, the Government will, for example:

• set plans for public spending in 2015/16 and 2016/17 in line with the spending reductions over the Spending Review 2010 period
• raise the State Pension age to 67 between April 2026 and April 2028
• set public sector pay awards at an average of 1% for each of the two years after the current pay freeze comes to an end.

The growth plans include the publication of a National Infrastructure Plan 2011. The plan sets out a pipeline of over 500 infrastructure projects including:

• introducing a new approach to financing infrastructure, by obtaining £20 billion of private investment from pension funds
• investing over £1 billion to tackle areas of congestion and improve the national road network
• investing more than £1.4 billion in railway infrastructure and commuter links
• investing £100 million to create up to ten 'super-connected cities' across the UK, with 80-100 megabits per second broadband and city-wide high-speed mobile coverage.