growing calls to hel households facing a cost o living crisis. when he delivers a sprin statement this afternoon ian king has more. facing a balancing act, the chancellor is facing that with today s spring statement he wants to continue instillin fiscal discipline as the government tries to restore th public finance system to balance following the pandemic on the other hand he s under severe pressure to try t mitigate the cost of livin crisis one way he is likely to do tha is with a modest cut there are a lot of things he could do one would be to lif more families after cancel his 12 billion poun increase international insurance altogether or to increase benefits. he is not likely to do all three of them, businesses in particular would like to see a consolation of the nationa insurance increase that doesn t seem likely t happen businesses will also be lookin for more encouragement in term