Chancellor Philip Hammond will begin his.........>

UK: Chancellor Philip Hammond will begin his Budget speech today, shortly after

15:30GMT. PM May has signalled that we are to see the "end of austerity" but the

OBR is expected to improve near-term fiscal forecasts on the back of better than

expected YTD borrowing (particularly driven by improvements in tax receipts).

- From a market point of view, the biggest impact is likely to come from the

change in the 2018/19 financing arithmetic with the MNI poll showing gilt

issuance likely to reduce from GBP106bn to GBP100.3bn. Most analysts expect the

main reduction in issuance to impact the "unallocated" gilt bucket which

currently stands at GBP3.7bn. Reductions in borrowing have often been combined

with reducing T-bill issuance but there is debate as to whether T-bill issuance

can be reduced further following last year's GBP11bn reduction in T-bill stock.

- The House will debate the Budget tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday before

voting a vote after the Thursday debate. There have been concerns that backbench

Conservative MPs or the DUP could be unhappy enough with the Brexit strategy to

vote down the Budget.

* For bank preview round up and the full poll: https://tinyurl.com/MNI-UK-Budget