Image source, PA Media

We’ll also hear from Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, this morning - who has set the government two tests for this week’s Autumn Statement.

The party says it wants to know how the chancellor will “make fairer choices on tax and spend” while growing the economy and improving living standards, saying the Conservatives are “putting the economy in reverse”. Labour argues that the UK is falling behind its global competitors, such as Canada, Germany and the US, with average economic growth since 2010 of 1.4%.

It is also calling on the government to crackdown on what it calls “global tax dodging” by implementing the minimum corporate tax rate agreed by the G20 group of industrialised countries.

Labour says that the UK’s commitment to the plan was “weakened” and “slowed down” by Rishi Sunak when he was Boris Johnson’s chancellor. The party adds that implementing the deal would have raised £7bn a year for UK public finances.

Jeremy Hunt’s immediate predecessor as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, has been speaking about the fallout from the mini-budget he delivered back in September which led to chaos in the financial markets, rising mortgage interest rates, and the Bank of England intervening to prop up pension funds.

In an interview with TalkTV last Thursday, Kwarteng - who was fired by former PM Liz Truss and replaced by Hunt - said he warned her she was going too fast with her ill-fated plan to cut taxes and borrow money to replace the lost revenue.

Kwarteng said he had warned Truss about going at a "breakneck speed" with economic measures after the mini-budget, to which he says she replied: “I’ve only got two years.”

The former chancellor said he told the ex-PM she would "have two months if you carry on like this”.

Truss was in office for 44 days. Some have noted that two days after the mini-budget, Kwarteng told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg there was “more to come” on tax cuts and he wanted to see people “retain more of their income” over the coming year.

The former chancellor also insisted he was not to blame for the government's current financial problems.

"The only thing they could possibly blame us for is the interest rates, and interest rates have come down and the gilt rates have come down," he said.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt appeared to reject this suggestion, saying “we have learned that you can't fund either spending or borrowing without showing how you are going to pay for it and that is what I will do”.

With confirmation in the past week that the UK economy contracted by 0.2% between July and September, it would appear warnings that Britain is heading into a lengthy recession might come true.

But what is a recession - and how does it affect people?

Usually you would expect that a country’s economy will grow over time because people are working more, producing more, and spending more.

They’re also paying more tax and businesses are hiring new workers and investing in things like machinery and equipment. GDP contracts when economic activity slows down - or reverses.

So instead of a person buying a new TV, they put the money into savings - or as like now - are spending more on basics like food and energy so are less likely to have left-over cash to spend on things they want instead of need.

And if people are buying less then firms will produce less, which means they don’t need as many workers or machines and so will cut back on hiring and investment - or start laying off staff because they don’t need as many - and that means people have even less money to spend on goods and services.

Image source, Getty Images

If this decline in activity continues for two periods of three months then an economy is technically in recession.

Many more people are likely to lose their jobs, businesses may fail and tax revenues decline - meaning the government has less money to spend on public services.

How do you get out of a recessionary cycle?

In usual times the Bank of England would cut interest rates to make borrowing money cheaper for individuals and firms.

But it isn’t doing that right now because inflation - the rate at which prices increase - is currently in double digits.

Governments can help “prime the pump” of the economy by investing money in big infrastructure projects like railways, motorways and fast broadband.

But as we may learn this week, the government may not feel that now is the time to increase its borrowing to invest.

You can find out more about recessions here, and there’s an explainer for what we mean by GDP.

Image source, PA Media

When the latest figures on the state of the UK economy were released on Friday showing that activity dropped by 0.2% in the last quarter, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt - who is on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg this morning - said he was "under no illusion that there is a tough road ahead" as he warned "extremely difficult decisions to restore confidence and economic stability" would be required.

And having previously warned that he would have to make “eye-watering decisions” about tax rises and public spending cuts to plug a so-called “black hole” in the government’s finances, on Friday Hunt pledged he was working to make a possible recession "shallower and quicker" in Thursday’s Autumn Statement.

Labour have accused the Conservatives of leaving the British economy exposed to international shocks following a decade of weak growth and inequality.

Image source, BBC/Getty Images

This week Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Financial Times editor Roula Khalaf and historian Sir Simon Schama will be discussing and commenting on what they’ve heard.

Paul Johnson has been director of the economics think tank the IFS since 2011. Among his main areas of interest are the public finances, pensions, tax and climate change. He was awarded a CBE in 2018 for services to the social sciences and economics.

Roula Khalaf has edited the Financial Times newspaper since 2020, having previously been the deputy editor. She has worked for the paper since 1995 in various roles including as Middle East editor where she led coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2010.

Simon Schama is a professor of history and art history at Cambridge University. He has written extensively on history and art and has made a number of television programmes for the BBC and PBS in the US. He was knighted in 2019.

Image source, EPA/PA Media/BBC

Ahead of Thursday’s Autumn Statement, we’ll be hearing from Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. He’ll be on shortly after 9am.

Will he give us an idea of what his plan is? What’s the mix of public spending cuts to tax rises he’s going to deliver - given we think he’s planning to cut public spending by about £35bn and raise some £20bn through changes to tax?

Will benefits rise in line with inflation? - and what about the triple lock for state pensions? And how does he square the desire to balance the books as inflation and the cost of living soars and the economy contracts?

Expect Hunt to be coy about the details - but we may get an inkling about his current thinking.

Responding for Labour is the party’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Against a backdrop of declining economic growth, a potential new round of public spending cuts and pressure on public services - how much room does the party have to make funding commitments now for a possible future Labour government?

And ahead of today’s service of remembrance at the Cenotaph in central London, we’ll hear from the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin.

Thank you for joining us this morning for continuing live coverage of BBC News’ flagship political interview programme Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

Following a week which saw the resignation of cabinet minister Sir Gavin Williamson after allegations of bullying by two former colleagues were leaked to the media, the government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is now looking towards the autumn statement this Thursday.

It’s been widely seen as a moment for him and his chancellor to rebuild the Conservative Party’s traditional reputation for sound economic management. That took quite a hit following September’s mini-budget, which left the financial markets reeling and brought about the end of Liz Truss’s brief tenure as PM.

The task facing Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is all the more acute after figures released on Friday showed the UK economy shrank by 0.2% between July and September.

Don’t forget you can watch Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg live without leaving this page from 9am.