Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has been defending his mini-budget in the Commons, on the day of a fresh intervention by the Bank of England
Meanwhile, the IMF has released a report suggesting the UK economic plan could increase growth but has inflation risks
And PM Liz Truss has insisted she's still committed to the "growth measures" in last month's mini-budget, despite the Bank's latest move
The Bank began an emergency plan to buy government debt after the "mini-budget" in late September - because investors were selling them off
The government's plan to fund tax cuts with large borrowing spooked markets, with the pound plunging
Many pension funds hold government bonds as they are traditionally seen as a very safe asset
Thanks for following our coverage of all the latest news on the UK economy.
We're now pausing our live page for the day.
The coverage was brought to you by editors James Fitzgerald and Nathan Williams, with reporters Dearbail Jordan, Alys Davies, Flora Drury, Paul Seddon, and Christy Cooney.
Here's a closing summary of all the day's news on the ongoing turmoil in the UK economy.
Image source, .
Image source, ReutersThe IMF issued a rare rebuke of Kwarteng's mini-budget
Kwasi Kwarteng is preparing to make his first trip as chancellor to the annual International Monetary Fund gathering in Washington, just a fortnight after the financial institution issued a rare - and excoriating - rebuke of his mini-budget.
In an extraordinary statement, external, the IMF urged Kwarteng to "re-evaluate the tax measures" he announced, adding "we do not recommend large and untargeted fiscal packages at this juncture".
The IMF also claimed Kwarteng's measures would "likely increase inequality".
The government has since pulled its plan to reduce tax for high earners over £150,000.
But that's unlikely to be enough to salve the IMF's concerns.
A little earlier Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng faced questions about the government's economic plans from MPs. Here's a quick round-up of what he said.
The UK economy is now on "very shaky ground", according to Mohamed El-Erian, president of Queens' College, Cambridge University and part-time chief economic advisor at Allianz.
"When financial systems go into turmoil, they are like the tail that shakes the body of the dog and they can cause a lot of damage. When the yields become disorderly the mortgage market starts having problems," he tells the BBC.
"Then people start worrying about their own economic future so they start changing their behaviour. So, if we're not careful, the average person will not just worry about whether their kids will be better off, they will worry over whether they can maintain their own standard of living.
"Then you can trigger a self-reinforcing economic decline that is very difficult to reverse."
Image source, Getty ImagesSomething financial markets don't like about the Bank of England's emergency bond-buying is that there is an expiry date. The scheme is set to end on Friday.
“By all accounts, this time isn’t sufficient," Antoine Bouvet, senior rates strategist at ING, tells the BBC.
He points out that the Bank only made its first intervention on 28 September: "And as you can see as the end of this operation approaches, market volatility is increasing again."
Bouvet reckons the Bank will have to take further steps to keep markets calm.
"There’s two ways they can do that," he says. "Keep the piecemeal, whack-a-mole approach…this is papering over the crack and isn’t very efficient."
Or, says Bouvet, a second approach would be "give a blanket cover to the market to give reassurance that it will buy gilts for a long period of time at least until the end of the year".
"They don’t need to buy a huge amount of debt for this to be efficient," he says.
"They just need to say they will in case of market stress, and that’s already something that will go a long way to restore market confidence.”
Vicki Young
Deputy Political Editor
Since the high-octane days of Brexit votes there's been a naughty bench in the Commons.
Right at the back of the Chamber, government rebels would sit together and ask awkward questions.
These days it's the government’s economic policy that's causing the disagreements.
A few of those sacked by Liz Truss showed up for Treasury questions and huddled side-by-side in the back row. The rest of the benches were sparsely occupied.
There was a plea to the chancellor to reach out to colleagues and some concern about where cuts might fall, but most seem to have decided that now is not the time to rock a leaky boat.
BBC business reporter Ben King explains the recent changes in the UK bond market and why the Bank of England was forced to intervene.
A grilling of Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and his ministerial colleagues comes to an end with the chancellor alluding to a "volatile" situation in Ukraine, which he says has had an impact on the UK economy.
We heard him defend the government's tax-cutting and borrowing plans, and say that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has increased its growth expectations for the UK.
Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is asked whether the statement on the economy he is due to deliver on 31 October will have "confidence at its heart".
He replies that the statement "will be relentlessly upbeat" but there will be an "iron commitment to fiscal responsibility".
Kwarteng adds: "These are challenging times but we have got to live within our means."
Image source, House of CommonsShadow chancellor Rachel Reeves says the current economic turmoil is a "British crisis made in Downing Street". She says no other government around the world has sabotaged its own economic credibility as UK ministers have done.
She asks: "Are the chancellor and the PM the last people left on Earth who actually think their economic plan is working?"
Kwarteng responds by saying the IMF says the government's mini-budget has increased UK's growth forecast.
He claims the Conservatives are the pro-growth party - facing an "anti-growth coalition".
Kwasi Kwarteng says he is "relentlessly focused on growing the economy".
"Putin's barbaric war in Ukraine continues to put pressure on gas prices," he says, adding that with predictions of typical bills reaching £4,000 to £6,500 a year, "people needed immediate support to get them through this winter."
"Last month we set out the growth plan which will focus on breaking out of the high tax, low growth cycle that we were currently trapped in," he says, enabling more money to be put in people's pockets and raising living standards for everyone.
He adds that he wants to remind the House that he will set out the government's medium-term fiscal plan on 31 October, and this will be accompanied by a full economic fiscal forecast published by Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
Levelling up - which aims to give people and communities that feel they have been left behind a chance to catch up - has been brought up by MPs in the Commons.
It was a key pledge under Boris Johnson's administration.
Many were worried it was still going ahead, noting projects in their areas.
But Pete Wishart, the SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire, questioned how it would work amid the financial uncertainty currently gripping the UK.
"Can we actually still believe in this fairytale of levelling up - is it not now just a measure of how far they are going to level us all down?" he asked.
Felicity Buchan, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, responded: "Everything we are doing it being driven by a growth agenda so that we can level up all the way across the United Kingdom."
Former Tory Chief Whip Julian Smith asks whether the government can confirm that it will not "balance the forthcoming tax cuts on the back of the poorest people in our country".
The chief secretary to the treasury replies: "The objective of this government is first of all to make sure that the economy is growing.
"That will help lift wages, it will create new jobs, and it will create a sustainable tax base for our public services.
"But as we make these decisions... of course we're going to balance considerations of fairness, the cost of living pressures that people suffer, along of course with [the] interests of the tax payers."
Labour MP James Murray says the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's refusal to publish the Office for Budget Responsibility's financial forecast along with the mini-budget "played a key role in falling confidence in the pound, rising borrowing costs and market panic.
"His woeful decision to avoid scrutiny by gagging the OBR helped increase mortgage costs for working people who are now paying the price for Conservative failure."
He quotes the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney who he says described the chancellor's behaviour "as undercutting economic institutions," and asks whether the chancellor accepts the criticism.
Kwarteng responds: "The OBR will have a fully forecasted response to medium term fiscal plan in less than three weeks."
Kwarteng is asked whether he will commit to increasing benefits in line with inflation.
He says: "The medium term fiscal plan is coming out on 31 October and I'm not going to pre-judge any measures in it".
There follows more discussion of the government's tax-cutting plans.
Shadow City minister Tulip Siddiq says that, at a time when her constituents are "struggling to make ends meet", the government has "decided the way to increase growth in the economy is to lift the cap on bankers' bonuses".
She adds that no-one she's spoken to in the City has agreed the move is the "right policy to drive growth", and asks if the government really believes it will.
Financial Secretary to the Treasury Andrew Griffith says: "This government is going to grow the economy by releasing the burden, the yoke of taxation.
"Whether that's on ordinary people - cutting the basic rate of tax from 20p to 19p.
"Whether it's by reversing the increase in national insurance, or by cutting the taxes on the businesses that she's been meeting... by reversing the increase in corporation tax next year."
Reacting to comments made by Conservative MP Andrew Griffith in support of scrapping the cap on bankers' bonuses - announced in the government's mini-budget - Labour MP Marsha de Cordova reacts by saying: "That was total nonsense".
She goes onto say that as families struggle to keep up with the cost of living, "this government has chosen to help bankers by removing the cap on their bonuses whilst maintaining the cap on household social security."
She says the household social security cap has remained stagnant since 2016, plunging hundreds of thousands into "deep poverty".
"The cap on social security is cruel, and how can the chancellor seriously justify removing the cap on bankers bonuses but not on the social security cap?" She adds, "will he change that?"
Griffith responds: "The honourable lady has fully booked her place at the anti-growth coalition".
"This government is not afraid to be on the side of the people that create the wealth that funds our public services," he says.
Chris Philp, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has been pressed on infrastructure projects across the UK in a series of questions.
"Without critical infrastructure not going to see growth in jobs, growth in wages," he told those gathered in the Commons.
He ended by saying the "government has a growth plan" but the Labour party has "no plan".
The government's growth plan - details of which were unveiled in the mini-budget - has been widely criticised.
Chris Philp, chief secretary to the Treasury, defends the government's economic plan against one MP's claim that the government has managed to transform 10 Downing Street from "a nightclub into a casino".
Philp says: "The real risk is in not having a growth plan, the real risk is in having taxes that are too high, the real risk is not investing in infrastructure."