The Budget will include the first of a package of "deep reforms" to bring British energy costs towards the European average, the Observer reports in an interview with the Chancellor, John Healey, published on Sunday 25 October. The Treasury has not confirmed the individual measures.
The paper says the reforms will sit alongside short-term measures to give households and businesses a "breather". According to the Observer, options include new measures to delink gas and electricity prices. No cost has been published for either the reforms or the short-term help.
The Observer reports Healey as saying that now is not the moment for "major moves on taxation or spending". He also spoke of the need to "reinforce the economy's resilience".
The paper says the likely approach includes letting the buffer against the fiscal rules shrink to absorb the impact of the US-Iran war. That is the Observer's reading of the plan, not a Treasury figure.
According to the Observer, Healey left the IMF meetings in Bangkok gratified that the UK is "not in the eye of the bond market storm".
On Thursday Healey told ITV News that "energy costs are punishing at the moment", without giving detail of any help. He had earlier said cost-of-living support should be "targeted and temporary".