Pound treads water after Autumn Statement
The pound is steady in trading after George Osborne delivered his Autumn Statement.
The pound has not made progress in forex trading versus its main partners the dollar and euro this afternoon (December 5th), following the delivery of George Osborne's Autumn Statement.
As expected, the speech did not yield much good news, aside from the government's decision to scrap a 3p rise in fuel duty, which was well-received by the House of Commons.
However, austerity measures will be extended to 2018 as debt-cutting goals look set to miss their election year deadline.
Mr Osborne has said debt would start to fall as a proportion of gross domestic product by 2015, but he had been forced to delay this by a year due to the fact the economy is still struggling.
However the chancellor was positive and told his colleagues: "It's taking time, but the British economy is healing."
At 16:00 GMT, the pound appreciated by 0.1 per cent in trading with the euro to £1 buying €1.231, while it was firm versus the dollar at $1.609.
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