Chancellor Philip Hammond has signalled he wants to drop the Tories' 2015 manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT.

Attending a meeting of the IMF in Washington, Mr Hammond said he would prefer to have more "flexibility" when it came to managing the economy.

His comments came after he was forced into an embarrassing Budget U-turn on national insurance contributions for the self-employed amid claims from Conservative MPs it breached their election commitment.

He told BBC News: "We do need flexibility to manage the system and we do need to make sure that Theresa May and her Government have a clear mandate to execute our plan.

"All chancellors would prefer to have more flexibility in how they manage the economy and how they manage the overall tax burden down (rather) than having to have their hands constrained.

"But what we put in the manifesto will be decided in the next few days and we will publish that."