The Rest Is Budget 2026: key themes from Alastair Campbell and Steph McGovern

On Thursday 8 October, Evelyn Partners and Coutts brought clients together for The Rest Is Budget, an opportunity to look beyond speculation about individual measures and discuss the wider political and economic choices shaping this year’s Autumn Budget.

The discussion ranged from how governments communicate difficult decisions to what the UK needs to help businesses grow, all important questions whose impact goes well beyond Westminster. While attendees weren’t privy to any yet to be announced policies, they did gain valuable insight into the likely conversations happening behind closed doors inside government.

In the run-up to a Budget, headlines can make it difficult to distinguish confirmed policy from speculation. Alistair Campbell’s advice was blunt: “Ignore pretty much everything you hear.” His point was that many Budget rumours are not leaks, but ideas being put into circulation by people who want to influence the debate or test the response.

Campbell noted that genuine leaks are surprisingly rare, but that outside of announcements by the government themselves (such as speeches given by Prime Minister Burnham and Chancellor John Healey at the recent Labor party conference) opposition speeches can offer another perspective. The arguments and criticisms the opposition chooses may hint at what they believe the government is considering, although they are not confirmation of what will be announced.

For households and businesses, the practical lesson is to stay informed without treating rumours as settled policy. Until measures are confirmed and the detail is clear, they are not a reliable basis for making financial decisions.

There was no escaping from the fact that the UK is facing many challenges, and that any party has a big job in setting a positive direction for the future. In that vein, much of The Rest IS Budget session centred around growth, and specifically, how to get more economic growth, that according to Campbell, “has been close to zero since 2008.”

Campbell noted that genuine leaks are surprisingly rare, but that outside of announcements by the government themselves (such as speeches given by Prime Minister Burnham and Chancellor John Healey at the recent Labor party conference) opposition speeches can offer another perspective. The arguments and criticisms the opposition chooses may hint at what they believe the government is considering, although they are not confirmation of what will be announced.

For households and businesses, the practical lesson is to stay informed without treating rumours as settled policy. Until measures are confirmed and the detail is clear, they are not a reliable basis for making financial decisions.

The discussion on growth naturally led into how this can be achieved. Both Campbell and McGovern agreed that the UK has many people with the ideas and ambition to start businesses, but that the challenge comes in providing the capital to keep these businesses in the UK and encourage more people to have that entrepreneurial mindset.

Steph McGovern brought a practical perspective on entrepreneurship, including the role that early exposure to business can play. She described how lessons from industry at her own school when she was a child helped pupils understand how businesses work, how money is made and how people might improve their financial circumstances, with many successful examples from her own classmates. It was an example of how grounded learning can open up opportunities.

The discussion also considered the journey from start-up to scale-up. The UK has people starting businesses and sources of funding for early-stage companies, but access to larger amounts of capital can become more challenging as a business grows. Many companies must look overseas to fund their next stage, in many cases shifting investment and ownership away from the UK to predominately US-based VC and private equity funds.

Supporting businesses to scale is therefore part of a broader growth conversation. It raises questions about access to capital, the conditions businesses need to expand and how the UK can retain more of the value created by its successful companies.

Both McGovern and Campbell shared their hopes that Burnham’s experience in seeing the benefits of private and public collaboration in Manchester will provide a guide for broader business growth across the UK.

The Budget will not resolve every challenge facing the UK, but it can clarify the government’s direction on growth and explain how it intends to balance that ambition with the state of the public finances.

The impact of the Budget will depend on the detail of the announcements and how they relate to your own circumstances. Once measures are confirmed, their implications can be considered in the context of wider financial plans and long-term objectives. Until then, it is sensible to keep the distinction between speculation and policy in view.

For detail on exactly what those changes are once the announcement happens, join our expert panel the day after the Budget, where we’ll discuss the changes in detail and the potential impact on your financial plan.