'Scrooge' Jeremy Hunt warns 'everyone will pay more tax' after his autumn budget

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has confirmed everyone in the country will be paying more tax following his autumn budget on Thursday.

It comes after Hunt warned he would be playing Scrooge with a "rabbit-free" statement.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show, Hunt said: "We are going to see everyone paying more tax, we are going to see spending cuts."

He added: "People will notice because these are difficult decisions but they will also see there is a plan to get through this."

There have been reports this could include so-called stealth tax hikes such as an extended freeze on income tax up to 2028.

Put to him this would be "sneaky", Hunt said: "I'm not going to be hiding anything I do."

"I'm a Conservative chancellor and I think I've been completely explicit that taxes are going to go up, and that’s a very difficult thing for me to do because I came into politics to do the exact opposite."

Hunt has said he was aiming to bring "certainty" to the country following the market turmoil caused by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng's disastrous mini-budget of unfunded tax cuts in September.

Watch: Daily politics briefing - 13 November

The Resolution Foundation, a left-leaning thinktank, has estimated the disruption it caused may have cost the country as much as £30bn.

Hunt, meanwhile, pledged his new plan would help the most vulnerable with their weekly shop and energy bills amid a 40-year high inflation rate of 10.1%.

Truss’s Energy Price Guarantee is currently subsidising energy bills, limiting them to an average £2,500. But it is set to end in April.

Read more: Households paying £94 extra on energy bills due to regulator’s failure

Without going into detail, Hunt said people will continue to receive support when the scheme ends, but that there will be "some constraints" to this.

"Will it be uncapped, unlimited? We have to recognise that one of the reasons for the instability that followed [Truss and Kwarteng's] mini-budget was that people were worried that we were exposing British public finances to the volatility of the international gas market.

"So, there has to be some constraints to it."

Asked if the average family could therefore be facing bills of up to £4,000, Hunt said: "I will explain the support we’re giving [on Thursday]."