Chancellor George Osborne has confirmed that an emergency Budget will be held on Tuesday 22 June.

He has also announced the creation of a new Office for Budget Responsibility, headed by respected fiscal and macroeconomic expert Sir Alan Budd, to assess the state of the nation’s finances.

Speaking to journalists at the Treasury’s offices in London, Mr Osborne said he wanted an emergency Budget that would “show that Britain can live within its means and…provide the solid foundation for a private sector recovery.”

He added that the Chief Secretary, David Laws, would meet Cabinet colleagues this week to agree £6 billion of cuts in this year’s spending.

The Treasury has undertaken work on how these cuts should best be implemented. It expects savings to be made:

• in discretionary areas like consultancy and travel costs:

• through doubling the current delivery plans for savings in IT spending:

• from immediate negotiations to achieve savings from the 70 major suppliers to government:

• from reductions in property costs:

• from restraining recruitment:

• by cancelling wasteful projects like ID cards:

• from cutting other lower value spending

The final detailed announcement on each Departments’ contribution will be made next Monday.

Finally, it is critical that we look for savings and root out wasteful spending wherever we can.