Jeremy Hunt is preparing a pre-election cut in national insurance despite a warning from the International Monetary Fund of a looming £30bn hole in the public finances, Downing Street has indicated. Rishi Sunak’s spokesman said the government rejected the IMF’s argument that there was no room for a third cut in NI in less than a year and that the Treasury should instead be thinking about tax increases or spending cuts. “I think on that we respectfully disagree with the IMF,” the spokesperson said. “My view is that cutting national insurance, rewarding work, is an important part of growing the economy.” Downing Street was responding to the release of the IMF’s annual health check on the UK in which it said “difficult choices” lay ahead. Speaking at a press conference, Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, said a cautious approach to tax cuts was needed because the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had damaged the public finances. “We are genuinely concerned, not just for the UK, for all countries that have used fiscal buffers extensively, that they must do more to rebuild these buffers,” she said. The IMF said it would have advised Hunt not to cut national insurance...