Britain’s public finances showed a much bigger-than-expected deficit in September, a setback for Chancellor Philip Hammond as he prepares to deliver the country’s first Budget plans since the Brexit vote.

Britain ran a Budget shortfall – excluding State-owned banks – of £10.6 billion last month, 14.5 per cent higher than the deficit in the same month last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. The Budget deficit is among the highest for any developed nation.

The deficit was above all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists, which produced a median forecast of an £8.5 billion-pound shortfall, and could limit Hammond’s ability to cushion the blow of the vote in June to leave the EU through higher spending or tax cuts.

The weak September figures took the deficit in the first six months of the financial year to £45.5 billion, down nearly five per cent from the same period in the previous year but already close to the £55.5 billion forecast for the 2016/17 tax year as a whole by Britain’s Budget watchdog in March.

Deficit could limit Hammond’s ability to cushion the blow of the vote to leave the EU

The Office for National Statistics said that receipts from corporation tax and property transactions both fell in September compared with the same month of 2015 and growth in value-added tax receipts was slower than earlier in the year.

It was the first fall in corporation tax revenues for the month of September since 2009, the Office for National Statistics said, adding it was unable to provide a reason for the fall.

The growth in VAT receipts was the slowest for the month of September since 2012. Mr Hammond says he will bring down the Budget deficit more slowly than his predecessor George Osborne had planned, to help the economy cope with the hit from the Brexit vote.

But the slow improvement of the public finances in the year to date, combined with an expected slowdown of the economy next year which will hurt tax revenues, represents a constraint on Hammond as he prepares his November 23 Autumn Statement.

He has said any extra spending on infrastructure projects is likely to be modest, disappointing some economists who say he could be bolder with government borrowing costs so low.

Britain’s Budget deficit stood at four per cent of economic output in the last financial year, down from over 10 per cent in 2010.