Budget 2026 Decoded
John Healey’s first Budget as Chancellor, explained for A-Level Economics. Watch the five-minute video, then open the interactive resource to analyse every decision, sort the winners and losers, and try to do the Chancellor’s job yourself.
Go deeper with the interactive resource
Decision-by-decision analysis and evaluation, a winners-and-losers sort, a “Be the Chancellor” simulator calibrated to the OBR’s costings, and the OBR’s verdict with five charts. Every section has a Present button for the board, and it prints with or without answers.
The Budget in four numbers
From the OBR’s October 2026 forecast
Source: Office for Budget Responsibility, Economic and fiscal outlook, October 2026.
Inside the interactive resource
Jump straight to a section
The role, Budget Day in six steps, and how the Treasury, Bank of England and OBR fit together.
Open →An energy shock, rising gilt yields and a shrinking safety buffer — with the key fiscal terms explained.
Open →Fourteen measures, each with an analysis chain, evaluation points, a theory link and a “tell me why” question.
Open →Students sort fifteen groups, then reveal the suggested verdicts and argue with them.
Open →Start from the OBR’s £12.5bn and build your own Budget. Healey’s real choices land on £14.5bn — can you do better?
Open →Five charts from the OBR’s forecast, the fiscal rules, the fuel duty catch, and KPMG’s analysis.
Open →Using it in a lesson
One way to run it in about 50 minutes
Watch and pause
Play the video, pausing on each decision for a quick “tell me why” before the evaluation appears.
Be the Chancellor
Pairs build a Budget in the simulator, then compare their trade-offs with Healey’s real choices.
Judge it
Use the OBR charts and the winners-and-losers sort to answer: was Healey right to keep headroom thin?