be affected by welfare cuts, despite Hammond claiming austerity was coming to an end. Spending impact Taking advantage of Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts of increasing tax revenues from economic growth, the budget was largely a spending budget with a cost of £103 billion over the next six years. The major tax and spend policy decisions in the budget, by their financial cost over 6 years, were: Other measures The budget included notice of a plan to consult on a new tax on produced or imported plastic packaging, to be applied where recycled content was less than 30% of the packaging material. References October 2018 events in the United Kingdom 2018 2018 in British politics 2018 government budgets