Rachel Reeves has been warned that she has six months to save her job over her failure to kick-start the economy. Labour MPs are also growing increasingly anxious over her plan to slash state spending by £15billion.

The Chancellor is expected to announce deeper-than-expected cuts in her Spring Statement on Wednesday after she was forced to borrow an extra £20billion over the first 11 months of the fiscal year. Her inflation-busting pay rises for the public sector and spiralling welfare payments were largely to blame. Last month the Daily Express exclusively revealed that Sir Keir Starmer is considering axing Ms Reeves as part of a wider Cabinet reshuffle.

And now Senior party sources say that if the economy has not sparked into life by the time of the Autumn Budget, Ms Reeves will have “run out of road”.

The Chancellor expected the economy to be in “credit”by £10billion at this point but spluttering growth means that the Treasury is closer to £5 billion in debt, necessitating at least £15billion in cuts in order to return to her target.

The fiscal rules state day-to-day government spending must be paid for out of taxation, not borrowing, and stipulate debt must fall as a share of national income by the end of this Parliament.

But her £25billion Budget raid on employers’ National Insurance last year hit business confidence and strangled growth, causing government borrowing costs to soar.

A source told the Mail on Sunday: “If we continue on this trajectory she will have three options to avoid a Liz Truss-style market turmoil – cut spending further, raise taxes or fiddle her fiscal rules to appear solvent.

“None of those will be politically acceptable and she will be at the end of the road.”

Defence spending has already been boosted by cutting the foreign aid budgets, while a £5billion cut to benefits was announced just last week.

Writing in the newspaper on Sunday the Chancellor pledges to keep “an iron grip on the country’s finances’”.

“Stability must come first. And on that bedrock of stability, we will get our economy growing,” she says.

Ms Reeves, who said that “we can’t tax and spend our way to higher living standards and better public services”, is nervous about her assault on public services being compared to the “austerity” of former Tory chancellor George Osborne.

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The Office for Budget Responsibility is expected to halve its growth forecast for 2025 to around 1%, piling more pressure on her to raise taxes again later this year to meet the fiscal rules.

The Treasury is searching for savings in addition to those from aid and welfare by targeting “unprotected” spending departments such as the Home Office, Justice, Environment and local government.

The recent decision to abolish the NHS England quango could net another billion, while making more public services digital and reforming the civil service may yield another £3billion and £2billion respectively.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: “The Labour Chancellor promised “growth, growth, growth” but since the Budget, growth is down, inflation is up, and business confidence has collapsed.

“Labour are having to come forward with an emergency Budget on Wednesday – a situation entirely of their own making. Rachel Reeves must urgently rethink her anti-business Budget.”