To say this wasn’t the plan is an understatement.

When Rachel Reeves said last year (and many times since) that she had no intention of coming back to the British people with yet more tax rises, she meant it.

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But now the question ahead of the budget later this month is not so much whether taxes will rise, but which taxes, and by how much? Indeed, there’s growing speculation that the chancellor will be forced to break her manifesto pledge not to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT.

Her argument, made in her news conference on Tuesday morning, is that she is in this position in large part because of other people’s mistakes, primarily those of the Conservative Party.

But while it’s certainly true that a significant chunk of the likely downgrade to her fiscal position reflects the fact that the “trend growth rate” – the average speed of productivity growth – has dropped in recent years due to all sorts of issues, including Brexit, COVID-19 and the state of the labour market, she certainly bears some responsibility.

A problem that is some of her own making

First off, she established the fiscal rules against which she is being marked by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Second, she decided to leave herself only a wafer-thin margin against those rules.

Third, even if it weren’t for the OBR’s productivity downgrade, it’s quite likely the chancellor would have broken those fiscal rules, due to the various U-turns by the government on welfare reforms, winter fuel, and extra giveaways they haven’t yet provided the funding for, such as reversing the two-child benefit cap.

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Now, at this stage, no one, save for the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility, really knows the scale of the task facing the chancellor. And in the coming weeks, those numbers could change significantly.

But it’s becoming increasingly clear, from the political signalling if nothing else, that the government is rolling the pitch for bad news later this month.

Indeed, for all that this government pledged to bring an end to austerity, a combination of higher taxes and lower spending will be highly unpopular, not to mention deeply controversial. And while the chancellor will seek to blame her predecessors, it remains to be seen whether the public will be entirely convinced.

Sir Alan Bates has reached a seven-figure deal to settle his claim over the Post Office Horizon scandal, more than 20 years after he began campaigning over what turned into one of Britain’s biggest miscarriages of justice.

Sky News has learnt that the government has agreed a deal with the former sub-postmaster after handing him what he described as a “take it or leave it” offer during the spring.

Sir Alan has previously said publicly that that proposal amounted to 49.2% of his original claim.

One source suggested that his final settlement may have been worth between £4m and £5m, implying that Sir Alan’s claim could have been in the region of £10m, although those figures could not be corroborated on Tuesday morning.

A government spokesperson said: “We pay tribute to Sir Alan Bates for his long record of campaigning on behalf of victims and have now paid out over £1.2bn to more than 9,000 victims.

“We can confirm that Sir Alan’s claim has reached the end of the scheme process and been settled.”

Sky News has attempted to reach Sir Alan for comment about the settlement of his claim.

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Sir Alan led efforts over many years to prove that the Horizon software system supplied by Fujitsu, the Japanese technology company, was faulty.

Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015, with scores of people either ending their own lives or making attempts to do so.

However, it was only after ITV turned their fight for justice into a drama, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, that the government accelerated plans to deliver redress to victims.

Even so, the compensation scheme set up to administer redress has been mired in controversy.

Writing in The Sunday Times in May, Sir Alan described the process as “quasi-kangaroo courts in which the Department for Business and Trade sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goalposts as and when it chooses”.

“Claims are, and have been, knocked back on the basis that legally you would not be able to make them, or that the parameters of the scheme do not extend to certain items.”

Sir Alan had previously been made compensation offers worth just one-sixth of his claim – which he had labelled “derisory”, with a second offer amounting to a third of the sum he was seeking.

Sir Ross Cranston, a former High Court judge, adjudicates on cases where a claimant disputes a compensation offer from the government and then objects to the results of a review by an independent panel.

In 2017, Sir Alan and a group of 555 sub-postmasters sued the Post Office in the High Court, ultimately winning a £58m settlement.

However, swingeing legal fees left the group with just £12m of that sum, prompting ministers to establish a separate compensation scheme amid a growing outcry.

A significant number of other sub-postmasters have also complained publicly about the pace, and outcome, of the compensation process.

The first volume of Sir Wyn Williams’s public inquiry into the Horizon scandal was published in July, and concluded that at least 13 people may have taken their own lives after being accused of wrongdoing, even though the Post Office and Fujitsu knew the Horizon system was flawed.

The miscarriage of justice left the Post Office’s reputation, and that of former bosses including chief executive Paula Vennells, in tatters.

A subsequent corporate governance mess under the last government further dragged the Post Office’s name through the mud, with the then chief executive, Nick Read, accused of being absorbed by his own remuneration.

In recent months, the government has outlined a further redress scheme aimed at compensating victims of the Capture accounting software which was in use at Post Offices between 1992 and 2000.

Since then, a new management team has been appointed and has set the objective of boosting postmasters’ pay and overhauling technology systems to enable Post Office branches to offer a broader range of services.

Every week, the Money team answers a reader’s financial dilemma or consumer problem – email yours to moneyblog@sky.uk. Today’s is…

My father passed away in April 2022. My mother was formally diagnosed with dementia a few months later. After Dad passed I helped Mum take care of the lion’s share of admin and tried to simplify things in her life cognisant of her reduced capacity. One of the things was to cancel the Sky subscription as this was only ever for Dad to watch the football. In June this year Mum went into full time care and as her son, with full power of attorney, I went about mitigating all her outgoings as I didn’t want her to be paying out unnecessarily now that she was in full-time residential care where everything is covered. Here I unearthed a BT Sport subscription which my mum had been charged for in the past three years. I explained that there was no way my mother would be aware she had this service let alone would use it. We didn’t get any paper bills. BT is unwilling to waiver the charges other than initially offering a paltry £30 on compensation and then at a later date was prepared to offer a further £80, which I declined – this amounts to more than £1,000.
Barry

Thank you for your email, Barry – I was really sorry to read about what your family has gone through and your story illustrates the minefield that often awaits relatives when a loved one dies.

Read all the latest Money tips and news here

This is far too big a topic to cover in one post but it’s worth going over some basics that apply across the board (and Citizens Advice has a useful guide here).

When someone dies, the executor named in any will is responsible for sorting the deceased’s financial affairs. If there isn’t a will, an administrator will be appointed – usually a friend or relative.

There are a couple of mechanisms that can help.

There’s the government’s Tell Us Once scheme, which will notify multiple organisations:

• HMRC – to deal with personal tax and to cancel benefits and credits, for example child benefit;
• Department for Work and Pensions – to cancel benefits and entitlements, for example universal credit or state pension;
• Passport Office – to cancel a British passport;
• DVLA – to cancel a licence, remove the person as the keeper of up to five vehicles and end the vehicle tax;
• Local council – to cancel housing benefit, council tax reduction, a Blue Badge, inform council housing services and remove the person from the electoral register;
• Social Security Scotland – to cancel benefits and entitlements from the Scottish government, for example Scottish child payment.

Tell Us Once will also contact some public sector pension schemes and Veterans UK to cancel or update Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments.

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Another mechanism is the Death Notification Service, which many major banks and building societies have signed up to and can help when dealing with multiple accounts.

You probably noticed that none of the above cover household bills and subscriptions – there are no shortcuts here other than contacting each organisation.

We have abbreviated your email above, but the key detail is that your mum was ultimately responsible for sorting your dad’s financial affairs – but, given she was just a few months from an official dementia diagnosis, she arguably wasn’t in a fit position to do so.

Had she been diagnosed at the time, it would have been possible to ask a court to replace her as executor and, with access to your father’s bank statements, you would no doubt have spotted the BT Sport subscription fee coming out each month.

Sadly, this wasn’t the case – and BT continued to legitimately charge for a service it was still providing.

Ultimately, it’s hard to pin blame on either side here. It’s an unfortunate case that was hard to avoid – though I would have been surprised if BT didn’t make some effort to help your family.

After I got in touch with them, they responded quickly – and it wasn’t long before they reached out to you.

Though the company maintained no errors were made on their part, they offered you a goodwill gesture that you told me you were happy with.

In a statement to me, BT said: “While the family had Sky, they were also accessing and paying BT for TNT Sports on their Sky box.

“We have spoken to Barry who acknowledges that while the Sky TV service was cancelled, BT were never contacted to report a bereavement or request cancellation of the service.

“Although there has been no BT error, we have offered a reimbursement of six months to acknowledge their experience.”

This feature is not intended as financial advice – the aim is to give an overview of the things you should think about. Submit your dilemma or consumer dispute via:

• WhatsApp here
• Or email moneyblog@sky.uk with the subject line “Money Problem”