Hundreds of thousands of people who claim benefits because of mobility and mental health issues will be told to look for jobs where they can work from home.

The plans, aimed at getting 2 million people back to work, will be set out by the chancellor in tomorrow’s statement, The Times reports.

Those who do not look for work face having their benefits reduced by £4,680 a year as ministers insist they can no longer be “written off” as incapable of working.

Jeremy Hunt will “probably” make a small cut to national insurance in tomorrow’s statement.

The chancellor has also delayed slashing inheritance tax and stamp duty until next year, according to The Sun.

He will not raise income tax thresholds despite the record tax take, the paper adds.

Government borrowing was higher than expected last month at £14.9bn but official figures showed a smaller-than-expected deficit across the first half of the year.

The £14.9bn was £4.4 billion more than a year earlier and the second-highest October borrowing since monthly records began in 1993.

It was more than most economists had been pencilling in and higher than the £13.7 billion expected by the UK’s fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), marking the first time it has overshot the official forecasts this financial year.

The ONS also revised up borrowing figures for the first six months of the financial year to £83.4 billion from £81.7 billion previously estimated, due largely to weaker income and corporate tax receipts.

But despite the higher-than-forecast figures, financial year-to-date borrowing is still below official forecasts made last March, standing at £98.3 bn, £21.9 bn more than a year earlier, though less than the £115.2 billion forecast by the OBR.

European Union negotiators did not believe Boris Johnson’s bluff that he was prepared to pull the UK out of the bloc with a no-deal Brexit, Michel Barnier has revealed.

A government minister said taxes would be cut in Wednesday’s autumn statement but declined to be drawn on specific changes.

Laura Trott, chief secretary to the Treasury, said the government could start to think about reducing taxes because the economy had turned a corner.

“Real wages are, for three months, now ahead of inflation – again, that’s really important to kind of making a difference to how people feel,” she told Times Radio.

“So we can now talk about tax cuts and focus on growth, and that is what we’re going to be doing.”

Electric vehicle (EV) battery production must be incentivised to prevent the decline of the UK car industry, MPs warned.

A report by the cross-party Business and Trade Committee stated that hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk if the issue is not addressed.

The Government has been accused of “economic blackmail” after no Levelling Up funding was allocated to Northern Ireland.

Some 55 projects across the UK will get a share of nearly £1 billion from the fund aimed at regenerating high streets and improving transport links.

But no funding was allocated to Northern Ireland.

Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove’s department said “given the current absence of a working executive and assembly, the Government is not proceeding with this round of the Levelling Up Fund at this time”.

The Government will spend more than £300 million to “unlock” £50 billion in capital from British pension funds, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said.

Dubbed the Mansion House Reforms and announced by the Chancellor earlier this year, leading pensions firms agreed to put 5% of their investments into early-stage businesses in the fintech, life sciences, biotech and clean technology sectors by 2030.

The move was pitched as a way to help increase the retirement savings of a typical earner who starts saving at 18, by 12% over their career, or more than £1,000 more a year once they stop working.

Watch as Rishi Sunak gives a speech in London on Monday 20 November.

The prime minister painted a more positive picture of the economy ahead of the autumn statement on Wednesday, which Jeremy Hunt has signalled could be used to cut taxes for businesses.

Mr Sunak hailed having last week hit his pledge of halving inflation as he gave an update on the state of the nation’s finances.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt faces a troubling economic backdrop when he delivers his Autumn Statement to the country on Wednesday.

Economic forecasts show that growth is stagnant and Britain is teetering on the edge of a recession – while high prices and the cost of living crisis continues to impact millions of hard-pressed families.

However, last week Mr Hunt had a sliver of good news as inflation has halved over the past year, leading him to say the economy had “turned a corner” and fuelling expectations he will unveil tax cuts on Wednesday.