Pre-election give-away ruled out by Chancellor

With the country facing a 178bn deficit, Mr Darling made clear that he would have only limited room for manoeuvre on March 24 when he delivers his final financial statement before the country goes to the polls.

“I don’t think anyone’s expecting some sort of Christmas-tree-of-a-Budget. They’re not going to get anything like that,” he said.

“What you’re going to get is a sensible Budget, a Budget for the times in which we live, a Budget for the future of the country.”

Earlier Chief Treasury Secretary Liam Byrne said the Government would not need any further tax rises in order to meet its commitment to halve the deficit within four years, beyond the 19bn already announced.

Asked on BBC2’s Daily Politics programme whether it was possible “to get to a 50 per cent reduction in the deficit with the tax increases we already know about?” he replied: “Yep”.

A Treasury spokesman insisted: “These comments are not in any way new.

“We have set out our deficit reduction plan numerous times over the last year.”

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said the Government had still to set out a clear plan to get the deficit down.

“We haven’t heard from Alistair Darling, who’s actually the person who’s setting out the Budget,” he said last night.