ENDING austerity would cost £33 billion a year, according to a report from the conservative Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) published yesterday.

The think tank said that it would require Chancellor Philip Hammond to abandon plans to “balance the books” by the middle of the next decade and leave the national deficit at 2.4 per cent of GDP.

Mr Hammond is believed to be considering plans to ditch austerity in the autumn Budget which would mean “a very sharp change in direction” according to IFS deputy director Carl Emmerson.