Chancellor’s Mais lecture showcases plans for new fiscal devolution roadmap

On 17 March 2026 Chancellor Rachel Reeves gave the Mais lecture at Bayes Business School. The lecture was delivered just two weeks after the Chancellor’s Spring Forecast speech on 3 March which had signalled that the Chancellor would be setting out more information on the UK economy and fiscal plans in her Mais lecture.

With the sound of sirens continuing in the Middle East as the Chancellor spoke last week, the Chancellor set out three ‘big’ economic choices by the government and what actions the Government says it is taking to address these.

The first of these choices is the news that the Chancellor will be pushing ahead with plans to develop a roadmap for future fiscal devolution which will be published at this year’s Budget. This will set out plans to give regional leaders control of a share of some national taxes which are currently allocated by central government.

The roadmap will look at income tax, alongside other taxes, with reforms initially targeted at those places that have the greatest capacity to deliver them, and the greatest potential to benefit. 

According to the Chancellor’s speech, reforms will be fiscally neutral and will focus on sharing and retaining a portion of existing revenues, with the proceeds of growth benefiting the places that generated that growth, whilst managing volatile receipts both for local areas and the Exchequer. At present it is unclear if this means more fiscal devolution for Northern Ireland.

The Chancellor’s next big choice centred on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and set out details of what the Government’s overall strategy is which comprises the following four key strands and a range of actions tied to each:

1. to build sufficient ‘compute’ to protect the UK’s interests and avoid excessive dependencies on others. This essentially means, for example, having sufficient data centre capacity to protect sensitive data, ensure resilience from global shocks, and support domestic adoption, 
2. to establish the UK’s foothold and compete fiercely in the areas where the UK has real strengths, such as AI applications, AI chip designs, and cyber security,
3. to maximise the value added by AI to the wider economy and the public sector through accelerated adoption, and
4. to equip working people with the tools they need to maximise the rewards and minimise the risks.   

  The Chancellor’s final economic choice centred on how, in this age of insecurity, the UK’s economic, political, and military strength rests on strategic alliances, and in particular, how the UK’s fate as a country is inescapably bound with that of Europe. The Government has therefore chosen to ‘look towards a new and stable, future relationship’ with the EU. Where it is in the national interest to align with EU regulation, the UK should be prepared to do so, including in further areas of the single market, whilst also recognising that there may still be areas in which regulatory autonomy may be necessary for sectors with unique characteristics or strategic importance for the UK.