You may have noticed that we posted a news item late yesterday afternoon saying that we expect the Budget to be at 12.30pm on 22 June, and not 3.30pm as presently announced on the HM Treasury website.

When we first got a sniff of this news we phoned HM Treasury (no names, no pack drill) to ask if the time had changed.

‘Nope, it’s 3.30pm,’ was the basic response.

A little more digging about and it came to light that while the House of Commons normally starts its business at 2.30pm on a Tuesday – hence the 3.30pm start for the Budget after Prime Minister’s Questions – a motion had been put to start proceedings at 11.30am (the normal start time for a Wednesday’s business), which would mean that the Budget would then be at 12.30pm.

We understood from our source that it seemed highly likely that this would proposal would go ahead.

We thought that it would only be polite to phone HM Treasury back and inform them of our findings.

‘Nope, it’s 3.30pm until we’re told otherwise’ came the response.

Fair enough, but if George Osborne is out there – or anyone who knows George – can you tell him about the probable time change. We’re a little worried that he might have plans for Tuesday morning.

Perhaps he’s going to stop off on the way to the House with his wife to buy her a new hat if she’s going to be watching proceedings.

George, mate: listen, you haven’t got time! The Budget looks like it’s going to be 12.30pm not 3.30pm.

Get your skates on.

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