Much has been written about how Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement repudiated Trussonomics by embracing deficit reduction. Less noted is the clear break from the Cameron-Osborne austerity agenda.

The 2010s deficit reduction plan comprised 80 per cent government spending cuts and 20 per cent tax rises, in line with international best practice. Hunt either thinks this weighting wrong, or that there’s not as much government fat today to trim. His new “balanced plan” for reducing borrowing by £62 billion over five years will be a 50–50 split between cuts and tax hikes.

At least, that’s what’s advertised. Yet Hunt can only fully control policy decisions before a general election. From now to 2024–25, Office for Budget Responsibility data shows his entire £19.3 billion proposed deficit reduction will be delivered through higher taxes. Public spending will actually increase prior to polling day.

So much for balance. Not only has Hunt opted to push two-thirds of the overall pain into the uncertain post-election neverland, but all the tough £31 billion of spending restraint will supposedly come after 2025.

What we really face immediately, then, is private sector austerity: new announced tax raids on energy and electricity generator profits, the top 10 per cent of earners, and work (through a frozen employers’ national insurance threshold).

This estimated £20 billion of new tax hikes in two years significantly understates the pinch, too, because the huge “inflation tax” associated with Rishi Sunak freezing the income tax and national insurance thresholds, dragging people into ever-higher marginal tax rate bands, was already baked in. Combined, we will face the highest tax burden since the Second World War.

Given this evident prioritisation of public spending over taxpayers, how credible is it that Hunt will suddenly start wielding the axe after 2025?

If 2010 is anything to go by, neither major party will be upfront about any tough spending decisions during the 2024 election. With growing demands on healthcare, the state pension and social care affecting the older demographic most likely to vote, the risk is surely of additional spending promises paid for by yet higher taxes.

Former Tory cabinet minister Esther McVey asked this week: “If a Conservative government with a sizeable majority, in a time of financial pressure, won’t cut public expenditure to start living within our means, then when on earth will that ever happen?” Surely not in the aftermath of an unexpected, narrow Tory election win.

At a Centre for Policy Studies briefing on Tuesday, OBR chairman Richard Hughes explained that as spending rounds are thrashed out, £20 billion to £30 billion of expenditure typically gets added to grease the wheels for an agreement that satisfies the whole cabinet. This uplift is similar in magnitude to the savings Hunt promises to make post-election. Again, the smart money is on these promised spending cuts being eroded away by politics, either before or after the election.

Yes, Labour are favourites to win a majority. Perhaps they will ape Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in swallowing tough Tory spending plans to signal their own fiscal bona fides for a few years? That’s the trap Hunt is setting up — but it seems unlikely to work. Labour’s only consistent message for a decade has been for higher public spending, funded by taxing “the rich” more. If they give that up, what are they for?

Hunt must hope the OBR is being overly pessimistic, given it models market expectations for the path of interest rates. If these estimates prove too high (as the Bank believes they are), then less deficit reduction will be needed anyway.

In the meantime, don’t be fooled by Hunt’s talk of a “balanced plan”. The big tax hikes are guaranteed. The spending cuts in three to five years’ time? Not so much.