PHILIP HAMMOND has enough leeway to spend as much as £15 billion on ending austerity, a leading economic think tank said today in response to his Spring Statement.

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) director Paul Johnson said the Chancellor should use his summer Spending Review to show that austerity is “really coming to an end” in the 2020-23 period.

The institute pointed out that 10 million households will have lost £420 a year on average from the freeze on working-age benefits, while the seven million poorest households are worse off by an average of £560 a year.