Speaker’s Statement
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(1 month ago)
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Mr Speaker
Before we come to Treasury questions, I have agreed to a request from the Chancellor to make some brief comments about the global financial situation, following which the shadow Chancellor and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson will be allowed to respond and ask a question. I will then call other hon. Members to ask the questions on the Order Paper in the usual way. Other Members may well wish to refer to the Chancellor’s comments in their supplementary or topical questions, and I will take a more liberal view of the scope of supplementary questions than is usually the case. I call the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. As you say, I would like to make some brief remarks on the current economic situation.
The United States decision to impose tariffs has had, and will continue to have, huge implications for the world economy. These implications have been reflected in the reaction we have seen in global markets in recent days, which the financial authorities have of course been monitoring closely. This morning, I spoke to the Governor of the Bank of England, who confirmed that markets are functioning effectively and that our banking system is resilient.
I know, too, that this is an anxious time for families, who are worried about the cost of living—we have your backs. British businesses are worried about what a changing world will mean for them—we have your backs, too. This Government are clear-eyed that our response to global change cannot be to watch and wait, but instead to act decisively, to take the right decisions that are in our national interest, protecting working people. All the decisions that we make as a Government will be underpinned by the stability of our non-negotiable fiscal rules.
A trade war is in nobody’s interests. That is why we must remain pragmatic and cool-headed, and pursue the best deal with the United States in our national interest. That remains our priority. It was part of the discussion that I had with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week. But we have been clear that nothing is off the table. That is why we will continue to back British businesses during these uncertain times, particularly in industries that are most affected, as we rebuild our industrial base here in Britain.
We showed that backing yesterday when the Prime Minister and I announced new measures to give British car makers certainty and stability, and to support them on the transition to electric vehicles. We have put forward plans to support our life sciences sector by cutting back the time it will take to set up clinical trials in the UK. It is why we are working with our international allies to reduce barriers to trade right across the world. Over recent days I have had discussions with my counterparts in Canada, Australia, Ireland, France and Spain, and with the European Commission. We will pursue those talks in earnest. Tomorrow, I will hold talks with the Indian Government as part of our two nations’ economic and financial dialogue, as we seek to secure a new trade deal with India.
Finally, we must go further and faster in our mission to kick-start economic growth. I know that the challenges facing the global economy, and their potential impact, could be profound. As a Government, we must step up to that challenge to deliver security for working people through our plan for change, which is underpinned by stability, reform and investment—prioritising the builders, not the blockers; reforming our public services, not defending the status quo; investing in our long-term infrastructure, not cutting it for the short term. Security for working people, renewal for Britain—that is our focus, and that is what this Government will deliver.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I thank the right hon. Lady for advance notice of her comments.
This is a time of great concern for millions of people up and down our country, for businesses, and, as an open-trading nation, for our economy at large. Free trade has been the bedrock of prosperity for our country, and for many countries around the world, for decades. It has raised billions of people out of poverty. Tariffs are the enemy of free trade, and we on the Conservative Benches will do whatever we can to assist the Government in getting those tariffs down.
Having said that, of course we will never cease to be an effective Opposition who vigorously hold the Government to account—not least on the disastrous decisions that they have already taken in respect of our economy. We will be responsible when it comes to these matters, particularly where market sensitivities are engaged.
I want to ask the right hon. Lady the following questions. First, could she provide further details of the US negotiations and specifically whether further meetings with Scott Bessent and others have been arranged that involve her? Secondly, which areas beyond tariffs are being discussed in those negotiations? Thirdly, which sectors beyond cars and life sciences are being considered for potential Government support? Finally, could she update the House on what options there are for protecting sectors of the economy that might be affected by the dumping of goods as a consequence of trade diversion?
Rachel Reeves
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that response and for his offer to work constructively. I know from my time as shadow Chancellor that those moments when we can work constructively together in the national interest, whether in response to covid or in supporting Ukraine against the aggression of Russia, are when this House is at its best.
The shadow Chancellor asked for further details in a number of areas. Discussions are ongoing across a range of Government Departments, including the Treasury, with the United States, and I will be meeting US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shortly. Beyond tariffs, we are discussing a range of different areas, but the focus is on reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, with a particular focus on those sectors that are subject to the higher tariffs.
Although the 10% tariffs are lower than those for many other countries around the world, and we welcome that, the additional tariffs on cars, on steel and potentially on life sciences pose a real challenge to our country, because those are some of our biggest export markets. That is why we made the announcements yesterday, and in those sectors—automotives, life sciences and steel—we will continue to take the action that is necessary, working in partnership with business and trade unions, to make sure we are addressing those issues. We are also using institutions such as the British Business Bank, the National Wealth Fund and UK Export Finance to help businesses through these times.
The shadow Chancellor also mentioned concerns around dumping. We are working with colleagues around the world to understand those implications, but our first priority is not to create more trade barriers but to reduce the ones that exist today.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(1 month ago)
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Rachel Reeves
I will follow up on that issue. The smallest businesses—those that employ the equivalent of four people on the national living wage—will be paying no national insurance at all from this April. Up to 1 million of the smallest businesses will be paying less or the same national insurance as they were paying previously.
Rachel Reeves
Impressive. We will be considering all such schemes as part of the spending review, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to go further and faster to grow our economy. That is why we are spending £113 billion more on capital investment in this Parliament, compared to the plans that we inherited, which means that we can upgrade more roads, rail lines and energy infrastructure, and build the 1.5 million homes our country needs too.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)
The first duty of any Government is to keep the nation safe. That is why we are increasing defence spending as a share of GDP to 2.5%—the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. Derby has a vital role to play within the UK’s defence sector, particularly in nuclear engineering and aerospace, as demonstrated by the landmark £9 billion deal with Rolls-Royce, which will create up to 1,000 jobs in the city and protect thousands more.
Rachel Reeves
We inherited the settlement made by the previous Government, as the hon. and learned Member will know. There is a summit between the UK and the EU on 18 May where we will be looking to reduce the barriers to trade between the whole of the United Kingdom and the European Union. We recognise the specific issues around Northern Ireland, particularly in regard to the response to the tariffs, and we will continue to work with the Executive there to ensure that we get the best outcome for the people of Northern Ireland.
Spring Statement
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)
This Labour Government were elected to bring change to our country, to provide security for working people and to deliver a decade of national renewal. That work began in July, and I am proud of what we have delivered in just nine months: restoring stability to our public finances, giving the Bank of England the foundation to cut interest rates three times since the general election, rebuilding our public services, with record investment in our NHS bringing waiting lists down for five months in a row, and increasing the national living wage to give 3 million people a pay rise from next week.
Now our task is to secure Britain’s future in a world that is changing before our eyes. The threat facing our continent was transformed when Putin invaded Ukraine. It has since escalated further and continues to evolve rapidly. At the same time, the global economy has become more uncertain, bringing insecurity at home as trading patterns become more unstable and borrowing costs rise for many major economies. The job of a responsible Government is not simply to watch this change. This moment demands an active Government—a Government not stepping back but stepping up, a Government on the side of working people helping Britain reach its potential. We have the strengths to do just that as one of the world’s largest economies, an ally to trading partners across the globe, and a hub for global innovation. These strengths and the progress we have made so far mean that we can act quickly and decisively in a more uncertain world to secure Britain’s future and to deliver prosperity for working people.
As I set out at the Budget last year, I am today returning to the House to provide an update on our public finances, supported by a new forecast from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, ahead of a full spending review in June. I will then return to the House in the autumn to deliver a Budget in line with our commitment to deliver just one major fiscal event a year.
Let me now turn to the OBR’s forecasts; I want to thank Richard Hughes and his team for their dedicated work. The increased global uncertainty has had two consequences: first on our public finances and secondly on our economy. I will take each in turn.
In the autumn, I set out our new fiscal rules that would guide this Government. These fiscal rules are non-negotiable. They are the embodiment of this Government’s unwavering commitment to bring stability to our economy and to ensure security for working people, because the British people have seen what happens when a Government borrow beyond their means. The mini-Budget delivered by the Conservatives resulted in higher bills, higher rents and higher mortgages, and it was not the wealthy who suffered most when they crashed the economy; it was ordinary working people. They continue to feel the effects two and a half years later of the damage that the Conservatives did.
Let me be clear: there is nothing progressive, there is nothing Labour, about working people paying the price for economic irresponsibility. The British people put their trust in this Labour Government because they knew that we—they knew that I—would never take risks with the public finances and would never do anything to put household finances in danger. We must earn that trust every single day.
I set out two rules at the Budget. The first was our stability rule, which ensures that public spending is under control, balancing the current budget by 2029-30 so that day-to-day spending is met by tax receipts. The second was our investment rule to drive growth in the economy, ensuring that net financial debt falls by the end of the forecast period, while enabling us to invest alongside business.
Turning first to the stability rule, the OBR’s forecast shows that before the steps that I will take in this statement, the current budget would have been in deficit by £4.1 billion in 2029-30, having been projected to be in surplus by £9.9 billion in the autumn, as the UK, alongside our international peers like France and Germany, has seen the cost of borrowing rise during this period of heightened uncertainty in global markets. As a result of the steps that I am taking today, I can confirm that I have restored in full our headroom against the stability rule, moving from a deficit of £36.1 billion in 2025-26 and £13.4 billion in 2026-27 to a surplus of £6 billion in 2027-28, £7.1 billion in 2028-29 and £9.9 billion in 2029-30. That compares with the headroom left by the previous Government of just £6.5 billion. That means that we are continuing to meet the stability rule two years early, building resilience to shocks in this, a more uncertain world.
The OBR forecast that the investment rule would also be met two years early, with net financial debt of 82.9% of GDP in ’25-26 and 83.5% in ’26-27, before falling to 83.4% in ’27-28, to 83.2% in 2028-29 and then to 82.7% in 2029-30, providing headroom of £15.1 billion in the final year of the forecast, broadly unchanged from the autumn forecast.
After the last Government doubled the national debt—[Interruption.] After they doubled the national debt, debt interest payments now stand at £105.2 billion this year. That is more than we allocate to defence, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice combined. That is the legacy of the Conservative party. The responsible choice is to reduce our levels of debt and borrowing in the years ahead, so that we can spend more on the priorities of working people, and that is exactly what this Government will do. I said that our fiscal rules were non-negotiable and I meant it. I will always deliver economic stability and I will always put working people first. I said it at the election; I said it at the Budget; and I say it again today.
Let me now set out the steps that the Government have taken. At the Budget we protected working people by keeping our promise not to raise their rates of national insurance, income tax or VAT. At the same time, we began to rebuild our public services after the Conservatives left a £22 billion black hole in our public finances. Ours were the right choices: the right choices for stability and the right choices for renewal, funded by the decisions that we took on tax.
As I promised in the autumn, this statement does not contain any further tax increases, but when working people are paying their taxes while still struggling with the cost of living, it cannot be right that others are still evading what they rightly owe in tax. In the Budget, I delivered the most ambitious package of measures we have ever seen to cut down on tax evasion, raising £6.5 billion per year by the end of the forecast. Today I go further, continuing our investment in cutting-edge technology, investing in HMRC’s capacity to crack down on tax avoidance, and setting out plans to increase the number of tax fraudsters charged every year by 20%. These changes raise a further £1 billion, taking the total revenue raised from reducing tax evasion, under this Labour Government, to £7.5 billion. These figures are verified by the Office for Budget Responsibility and I to thank my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary for his continued work in this area.
Last week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions set out this Government’s plans to reform the welfare system. The Labour party is the party of work: we believe that if you can work, you should work, but if you cannot work, you should be properly supported. This Government inherited a broken system: more than 1,000 people every day are qualifying for personal independence payments; one in eight young people are not in employment, education or training. If we do nothing, we are writing off an entire generation. That cannot be right and we will not stand for it. It is a waste of their potential and it is a waste of their futures, and we will change it.
As my right hon. Friend said in her statement last week, the final costings will be subject to the OBR’s assessment. Today, the OBR has said that it estimates that the package will save £4.8 billion in the welfare budget, reflecting its judgments on behavioural effects and wider factors. This also reflects final adjustments to the overall package, consistent with the Secretary of State’s statement last week and the Government’s “Pathways to Work” Green Paper. The universal credit standard allowance will increase from £92 per week in 2025-26 to £106 per week by 2029-30, while the universal credit health element will be cut for new claimants by around 50% and then frozen.
On top of that, we are investing £1 billion to provide guaranteed, personalised employment support to help people back into work, and £400 million to support the Department for Work and Pensions and our jobcentres to deliver these changes effectively and fairly, taking total savings from the package to £3.4 billion. While spending on disability and sickness benefits will continue to rise, these plans mean that welfare spending as a share of GDP will fall between 2026 and the end of the forecast period, which is very different from what we inherited from the Conservative party. We are reforming our welfare system, making it more sustainable, protecting the most vulnerable and, most importantly, supporting more people back into secure work and lifting them out of poverty.
At the Budget, I fixed the foundations of our economy to deliver on the promise of change. That work has already begun. There are some 2 million extra appointments in our NHS; waiting lists are down; new breakfast clubs are opening across England; there have been the largest settlements in real terms for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the history of devolution; and asylum costs are falling—promises made, and promises kept, and every single one of them was opposed by Opposition parties.
At the Budget, alongside providing an increase in funding for this year and next, I set the envelope for the spending review, which we will deliver in June, led by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. That will set departmental budgets until 2028-29 for day-to-day spending, and until 2029-30 for capital spending.
Today’s statement reflects two steps that we have taken on our spending plans. First, because we are living in an uncertain world, as the Prime Minister has set out, we will increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP and reduce overseas aid to 0.3% of gross national income. That means that we save £2.6 billion in day-to-day spending in 2029-30 to fund our more capital-intensive defence commitments. Secondly, in recent months, we have begun to fundamentally reform the British state, driving efficiency and productivity across Government to deliver tangible savings and improve services across our country.
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister set out our plans to abolish the arm’s length body NHS England, and to ensure that money goes directly to improving the service for patients. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is driving forward vital reforms to increase NHS productivity, and is bearing down on costly agency spend to save money so that we can improve patient care.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is taking forward work to reduce the cost of running Government significantly—by 15%. That will be worth £2 billion by the end of the decade. This work shows that we can make our state leaner and more agile, and deliver more resources to the frontline, while ensuring that we control day-to-day spending to meet our fiscal rules.
Today, I build on that work by bringing forward £3.25 billion of investment to deliver the reforms that our public services need through a new transformation fund. That is money brought forward now to bring down the cost of running Government by the end of the forecast period by making public services more efficient, more productive and more focused on the user. I can confirm today the first allocations from this fund, including funding for voluntary exit schemes to reduce the size of the civil service, and for pioneering artificial intelligence tools to modernise the state; investment in technology for the Ministry of Justice to deliver probation services more effectively; and up-front investment so that we can support more children in foster care, to give them the best possible start in life and reduce cost pressures in the future.
Our work to make Government leaner, more productive and more efficient will help deliver a further £3.5 billion of day-to-day savings by 2029-30. Overall, day-to-day spending will be reduced by £6.1 billion by 2029-30, and it will now grow by an average of 1.2% a year above inflation; for comparison, in the autumn, that figure was 1.3%. I can confirm to the House that day-to-day spending will increase in real terms above inflation in every single year of the forecast. In the spending review, apart from the reductions in overseas aid, day-to-day spending across Government has been fully protected.
I can also confirm our approach to capital investment. In the autumn Budget, I announced £100 billion of additional capital spending to crowd in investment from the private sector, in order to fix our crumbling infrastructure and create jobs in every corner of our country. Today, I am not cutting capital spending, as the Conservative party did time and again, because that choked off growth and left our school roofs literally crumbling. That was the wrong choice. It was the irresponsible choice. It was the Tory choice. Today, I am instead increasing capital spending by an average of £2 billion per year, compared with in the autumn, to drive growth in our economy and to deliver in full our vital commitments on defence. This Government will ensure that every pound we spend will deliver for the British people by increasing productivity, driving growth in our economy and improving our frontline public services.
Let me turn to the impact of increased uncertainty on our economy. To deliver economic stability, we must work closely with the Bank of England, supporting the independent Monetary Policy Committee to meet the 2% inflation target. There have been three interest rate cuts since the general election, and today’s data shows that inflation fell in February, having peaked at 11% under the previous Government. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that consumer prices index inflation will average 3.2% this year, before falling rapidly to 2.1% in 2026 and meeting the 2% target from 2027 onwards, giving families and businesses the security that they need, and providing our economy with the stable platform that it needs to grow.
Earlier this month, the OECD downgraded this year’s growth forecast for every G7 economy, including the UK, and the OBR has today revised down our growth forecast for 2025 from 2% in the autumn to 1% today. I am not satisfied with these numbers. We Labour Members are serious about taking the action needed to grow our economy; we are backing the builders, not the blockers, with a third runway at Heathrow airport and through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. We are increasing investment with reforms to our pension system and a new national wealth fund, and tearing down regulatory barriers in every sector of our economy. That is a serious plan for growth. That is a serious plan to improve living standards. That is a serious plan to renew our country.
A changing world presents challenges, but also opportunities for new jobs and new contracts in our world-class defence industrial centres from Belfast to Deeside, and from Plymouth to Rosyth. In February, the Prime Minister set out our Government’s commitment to increasing spending on defence to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027—the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war—and an ambition to spend 3% of GDP on defence in the next Parliament. That was the right decision in a more insecure world—we are putting an extra £6.4 billion into defence spending by 2027—but we have to move quickly in this changing world, and that starts with investment. Today, I can confirm that I will provide an additional £2.2 billion for the Ministry of Defence in the next financial year—a further down payment on our plan to deliver 2.5% of GDP by 2027. This additional investment is about increasing not just our national security, but our economic security.
As defence spending rises, I want the whole country to feel its benefits, so I will now set out the immediate steps that we are taking to boost Britain’s defence industry, and to make the UK a defence industrial superpower. We will spend a minimum of 10% of the Ministry of Defence’s equipment budget on new, novel technologies, including drones and artificial intelligence-enabled technology, driving forward advanced manufacturing production in places like Glasgow, Derby and Newport, creating demand for highly skilled engineers and scientists, and delivering new business opportunities for UK tech firms and start-ups. We will establish a protected budget of £400 million in the Ministry of Defence—a budget that will rise over time—for UK defence innovation, and a clear mandate to bring innovative technology to the frontline at speed.
We will reform our broken defence procurement system, making it quicker, more agile and more streamlined, and giving small businesses across the UK better access to Ministry of Defence contracts—something welcomed by the Federation of Small Businesses. We will take forward our plan for Barrow, a town at the heart of our nuclear security, working with my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham). We are providing £200 million to support the creation of thousands of jobs there. We will regenerate Portsmouth naval base, securing its future, as called for by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan). We will secure better homes for thousands of military families—the homes that they deserve, which were denied to them by the previous Government—in the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth Moor View (Fred Thomas), for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) and for York Outer (Mr Charters) and in Aldershot. That is the difference that this Labour Government are making.
Finally, we will provide £2 billion of increased capacity for UK Export Finance to provide loans for overseas buyers of UK defence goods and services. I want to do more with our defence budget, so that we can buy, make and sell things here in Britain. I want to give our world-leading defence companies and those who work in them further opportunities to grow, and to create jobs in Britain, as military spending rightly increases all across Europe. To oversee all this vital work, my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary and I will establish a new defence growth board to maximise the benefits from every pound of taxpayers’ money that we spend, and we will put defence at the heart of our modern industrial strategy to drive innovation, which can deliver huge benefits for the British economy. That is how we make our country a defence industrial superpower, so that the skills, jobs and opportunities of the future can be found right here in the United Kingdom.
As the previous Government learned to their detriment, there are no shortcuts to economic growth. It will take long-term decisions. It will take our putting in the hard yards. It will take time for the effect of the reforms that we are introducing to be felt in the everyday economy. It is right that the Office for Budget Responsibility should consider the evidence and look carefully at measures before recognising a growth impact in its forecast, but I can announce to the House that the OBR has considered and has scored one of the central planks of our plan for growth.
In my first week as Chancellor, I announced that we were pursuing the most ambitious set of planning reforms in decades to get Britain building again, and in December we published changes to the national planning policy framework, driven forward tirelessly by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. We are reintroducing mandatory housing targets, and bringing grey-belt land into scope. The OBR has today concluded that these reforms will permanently increase the level of real GDP by 0.2% in ’29-30—an additional £6.8 billion for our economy—and by 0.4% of GDP within 10 years, which is an additional £15.1 billion in the British economy. That is the biggest positive growth impact that the OBR has ever reflected in its forecast, for a policy with no fiscal cost. Taken together with our plans to increase capital spending, which we set out in the Budget last year, this Government’s policies will increase the level of real GDP by 0.6% in the next 10 years. That is the difference that this Labour Government are making. Those are policies to grow our economy promised by a Labour Government, delivered by a Labour Government and opposed by the parties opposite.
The planning system that we inherited was far too slow. The OBR has concluded that our reforms will lead to house building reaching a 40-year high, with 305,000 homes a year by the end of the forecast period. Changes to the national planning policy framework alone will help build over 1.3 million homes in the UK over the next five years, taking us within touching distance of delivering our manifesto promise to build 1.5 million homes in England in this Parliament. Those are homes promised by this Labour Government, homes built by this Labour Government and homes opposed by the parties opposite.
The impact on our economy goes further still. I said at the election that we could not simply tax and spend our way to prosperity. We need economic growth, so I can today confirm that the effect of our growth policies, including our planning reforms, means an additional £3.4 billion to support our public finances and our public services by 2029-30. Those are the proceeds of growth, promised by this Labour Government, delivered by this Labour Government and opposed by the parties opposite.
Earlier this week, we provided an additional £2 billion of investment in social and affordable homes next year, delivering up to 18,000 new homes, and allowing local areas to bid for new development across our country, including sites in Thanet, Sunderland and Swindon. That is more security for families across the country, promised by this Labour Government, delivered by this Labour Government and opposed by the parties opposite.
To build these new homes, we need people with the right skills. Earlier this week, my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary announced more than £600 million to train up 60,000 more construction workers, including through 10 new technical excellence colleges across every region of the country, giving working people the chance to fulfil their potential. Those are new opportunities for our young people, promised by this Labour Government, delivered by this Labour Government and opposed by the parties opposite.
All this is just the start. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill passed its Second Reading on Monday. That was no thanks to the parties opposite. Once that Bill completes its passage, it will help deliver the homes and infrastructure our country badly needs. I say to the parties opposite: the British people will be watching. If the parties opposite do not support these reforms, let us be clear about what that would mean: they are opposing economic growth, they are opposing more homes for families and they are opposing good jobs across our country. We on the Government Benches are clear about whose side we are on; the parties opposite must decide, too.
This Labour Government are taking the right decisions now to secure Britain’s future. Today, I can confirm to the House that the OBR has upgraded its growth forecast next year and every single year thereafter, with GDP growth of 1.9% in 2026, 1.8% in 2027, 1.7% in 2028, and 1.8% in 2029. By the end of the forecast, our economy will be larger compared with the OBR’s forecast at the time of the Budget. That is the difference that this Labour Government are making.
This is not just about lines on a graph; it is about improving people’s lives. Working people are still feeling the pinch after a cost of living crisis caused by the Conservatives that caused interest rates and inflation to go through the roof, so I am pleased that the OBR confirms today that real household disposable income will now grow this year at almost twice the rate expected in the autumn. Compared with the forecast in the final Budget delivered by the Conservatives, and after taking inflation into account, the OBR says today that households will be on average more than £500 a year better off under this Labour Government. That will mean more money in the pockets of working people and higher living standards—promised by this Labour Government, delivered by this Labour Government and opposed by the parties opposite.
The world is changing. We can see that, and we can feel it. A changing world demands a Government who are on the side of working people, acting in their interest, acting in the national interest, not retreating from challenges, and not stepping back. It demands a Government with the courage to step up to secure Britain’s future and to seize the opportunities that are out there and before us. I am impatient for change. The British people are impatient for change after 14 years of failure, and we are beginning to see change happen. Our plan for change is working. Defence spending is rising. Waiting lists are falling. Wages are up and interest rates are cut. That is the difference that this Labour Government are making.
Today, the OBR confirms that our plan to get Britain building will drive growth in our economy and put more money in people’s pockets. There are no quick fixes, but we have taken the right choices: returning stability to our economy after years of mismanagement by the party opposite, and delivering security for our country and security for working people. That is what drives this Government; that is what drives me as Chancellor; and, that is what drives the choices I have set out today. I commend this statement to the House.
Mel Stride
May I just point out that all the Chancellor’s fiscal headroom disappeared, not just some of it? In fact, she went underwater to the tune of £4.1 billion. Reeling from one fiscal event to the next is not a way to run the public finances, and breaking your fiscal rules to the extent that the right hon. Lady has in just six months is a public humiliation.
May I now focus briefly on defence spending? We on this side of the House welcome the fact that the Government will reach 2.5% of GDP by 2027, as we pressed them to do, and we note the stepping stone along the way that the right hon. Lady has just announced, but we should go further than that. The 3% target should be brought forward to this Parliament. So may I ask the right hon. Lady: given the geopolitical tensions that she has raised, what provision she has made in her headroom, in her fiscal plans, for increasing defence spending more quickly in this Parliament, if that proves necessary? May I also ask her this: would she scrap the absurd Chagos deal, and put that money behind our armed forces?
The economy is in a perilous state, but there was a different way. There were different choices on taxing and spending and borrowing, and on productivity, and on welfare. Let me just say a few words about welfare. It was the privilege of my life to serve as the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and when it came to welfare reform, with that privilege came a deep responsibility: the responsibility for welfare reform to be properly thought through, with a very clear plan—[Interruption]—I know that Labour Members do not like it, because it is an alien idea to their party—so that we could be fair to the taxpayer, but equally fair to the many people up and down the country, some of whom are highly vulnerable. That was an approach, on our watch, that led to £5 million of savings across the forecast period, and 450,000 fewer people going on to long-term sickness and disability benefits as a direct consequence.
We would have gone further—much further—and we set out a clear plan in our manifesto to do exactly that, but those in the party opposite rushed their changes. They had no plan. There was not a single mention of the personal independence payment in the Labour party manifesto, and when they got into office, the Labour Government pussyfooted around and dithered. Why? Because it is deeply divisive within their rank and file. Then suddenly, when the Chancellor decided that she had run out of money, out went the word to find some savings in welfare, to scrabble around, to yank every lever possible.
Then there was the spectacle, frankly, of what the OBR has said about the simply shambolic changes that were announced only last week by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. We have gone from incompetence to chaos. There have been more changes to this policy than there were at the last minute to the right hon. Lady’s LinkedIn profile. The result is the worst of all worlds: a wholly inadequate level of savings on welfare, with welfare costs spiralling ever higher, and changes that are likely to harm many vulnerable people. May I ask the right hon. Lady: when the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions came to the House last week with these changes, she did not provide an impact assessment, but was this because the OBR had not signed off the numbers, was it because the Department did not have enough time to produce one, or was it only provided today, as many of us suspect, because this was thought to be a good time to bury bad news?
The forecast for growth is down, the forecasts for borrowing costs and inflation are up, and business confidence has been smashed into a million pieces. This Chancellor is constantly trying to blame forces beyond her control. The right response is not to duck responsibility, but to build a resilient economy. The right hon. Lady would have us believe that that is what she is doing, but how can we believe this Chancellor? How can we trust this Chancellor? She is the Chancellor who said she would not increase borrowing, but she did. She said she would not change her fiscal rules, but she did. She said she would not put up national insurance, but she did. She said she would not cut the winter fuel payment, but she did. She said she would not tax farmers, but she did, and she said she would not move to more than one fiscal event a year, and she just has. Now we are all paying the price of her broken promises. Today’s numbers confirm it. We are poorer and we are weaker. To govern is to choose, and this Chancellor has made all the wrong choices.
Rachel Reeves
I know that the shadow Chancellor has not been in his role for very long, but at least he is not misquoting Shakespeare today. If this was a Budget, it would be the Leader of the Opposition responding. I am glad that she is still in her place, but I know she will want to get back to her office for a lunchtime steak soon.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about Budgets. Let me remind the Conservative party that the only emergency Budget we have seen in recent years was in response to their party’s disastrous mini-Budget—a mini-Budget that crashed the economy, sent mortgage bills spiralling and left a £22 billion black hole in our nation’s finances. Conservative Members may have forgotten about the damage that they did to our country, but the British people never will.
As always, the shadow Chancellor talked a lot, but he did not offer a single alternative. He says he opposes our tax rises, but he cannot tell us whether he would cut the NHS to reverse them. He says he wants economic growth, but Conservative Members abstained on the very planning reforms that the OBR has said will kick-start growth. Mr Speaker, you do not change the country by abstaining or by sitting on the fence; you change the country by leading and by taking action, and that is what this Government are doing. The shadow Chancellor says he wants businesses to trade, but he does not want us to talk to the second largest economy in the world or, indeed, our biggest trading partners in the European Union. He simply is not serious. Four months into the job, and he has got no clue.
The right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about growth, but he does not say anything about the fact that the OBR has upgraded growth next year and every single year after. He talks about pensioners, but he forgets that it is his party’s policy to scrap the triple lock, which we are protecting and which will mean the state pension rising next month by over £400. He talks about wages, but he forgets the fact that we are boosting wages by boosting the national living wage from next month. The shadow Chancellor says nothing about living standards or this morning’s fall in inflation, because the last Parliament was the worst on record, and the OBR has today revised up its forecast for family finances. Working people are always better off with Labour.
The right hon. Gentleman is learning something, because at least this time he has asked a couple of questions, so let me respond to them. He asked what the markets should make of this. What the markets should see is that, when I have been tested with a deterioration in the headroom, we have restored that headroom in full. That is one of the choices that I made. He says that it is a sliver of a headroom. Well, it is 50% more headroom than I inherited from the Conservative party. When I was left with a sliver of headroom, I rebuilt it after the last Government eroded it. That is the difference that we have made. While they left the public finances and the public services in a mess, we wiped the slate clean, which means that we have the flexibility now to increase defence spending, as the leader of the Labour party has done. The Conservatives had 14 years to increase defence spending, and now they lately come to the party.
The shadow Chancellor mentions welfare reform and his time at the Department for Work and Pensions. What a legacy: one in eight young people not in education, employment or training, and 1,000 people a day going on to personal independence payments. The OBR says today that welfare spending as a share of GDP will now start falling—a far cry from what we had under the Conservative party. The shadow Chancellor speaks about employment. The OBR says that employment will increase, that wages will increase and that living standards will increase. What a change, after 14 years of the Conservative party.
The world is changing, and no one can be in any doubt about it, but the Conservative party is stuck in the past—divided, out of touch and carping from the sidelines. Conservative Members have no plan: no plan to kick-start growth, no plan to fix our public services and no plan to keep our country safe. The only plan for change they are working on is a plan to change their party leader, and we cannot blame them for that.
If the Opposition have no plan, let me remind them about ours. The minimum wage up, real wages up, house building up, NHS investment up, investment in our schools up, investment in our roads up, defence spending up—and every single one of those policies is opposed by the party opposite. They are opposed by the Conservatives, opposed by Reform, opposed by the SNP, opposed by the Liberal Democrats and opposed by the Greens. It is the anti-growth coalition in action. They are the blockers. We are the builders—securing Britain’s future, protecting working people and delivering change.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend inherited a very difficult challenge when she became Chancellor of the Exchequer last July, and she is absolutely right that the books need to balance. This is not other people’s money we are spending, but taxpayers’ money—our constituents’ hard-earned money—and she is right to be tough as Chancellor. We look forward to quizzing her at the Treasury Committee next week, and I am sure she is looking forward to it just as much.
The Chancellor announced an extra £2 billion a year in capital spending, and she talked about extra defence spending. Could she give some more detail about where she hopes that extra £2 billion a year will go?
Rachel Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I do indeed look forward to attending the Treasury Committee next week. I was pleased to serve on the Treasury Committee in the past, and it is a pleasure to give evidence to it.
We will set out in the spending review—my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary will set out in the spending review—the allocation of the additional capital money. However, I was able to announce today the £2.2 billion for defence from next year, as well as the £2 billion as a downpayment to build the affordable and social housing that we need. Those are two examples of the priorities of this Government to get Britain building and to secure our national security.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(2 months ago)
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Rachel Reeves
The Government have no plans to consider zero rating indoor play facilities for VAT. All tax breaks must provide value for money and evidence suggests that such savings are only partially passed on. I would, however, welcome my hon. Friend engaging with us as we look to inform our “Transforming Business Rates” paper ahead of the Budget later this year.
Rachel Reeves
The right hon. Gentleman and his party had 14 years to reform the welfare system. They failed to do so, but this Government will. We are turning the British economy round after the disaster left to us by the previous Government: three cuts in interest rates since the general election, real wages rising at their fastest rate for three years, fuel duty frozen, the payslips of working people protected, and millions getting a pay rise through an increase in the national living wage. That is the change that this Government are delivering; that is the change that the Opposition are blocking.
Rachel Reeves
Unlike the Conservatives, we believe that investing alongside private industry is good for jobs and good for economic growth. I visited the National Wealth Fund’s offices last month where I heard at first hand about its equity investment in Cornish Metals. This will help to finance the reopening of Cornwall’s South Crofty tin mine, creating more than 300 local jobs, and—
Mr Speaker
Order. Look, enough is enough. I have to get Members in from both sides. I am sorry that the Front Bench does not want to get these Members in, but I am determined to. These are called topical questions, which means I want quick questions and certainly short answers. I call the Father of the House, Sir Edward Leigh.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Rachel Reeves
After 14 years of stagnant growth and the decline in living standards during the last Parliament, my hon. Friend is absolutely right that we must turn around that performance. That is what this Government are determined to do. The planning and infrastructure Bill will come to Parliament shortly, followed by the pensions Bill, which will unlock long-term pension capital and make it easier for businesses to get things done in this country.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
The Chancellor makes reference to the PWC report, but half of the survey in that report was done before the Budget. The Chancellor and I spent a very happy three years sitting next to each other at the Treasury Committee, and she was incredibly good at demanding straight answers from the witnesses that came in front of the Committee. She has already been asked questions about the fact that the fiscal headroom is only £10 billion and the increase in the cost of borrowing is now going to go through the roof so, at some point, she will have to raise taxes, cut investment or increase debt. Which will it be?
Rachel Reeves
The headroom in our Budget was larger than the headroom that we inherited from the previous Government, so we have put aside more money for changes in economic prospects. The OBR has not yet done its forecast, which will take a whole variety of factors into account, and we will make decisions based on that. I have been really clear that our fiscal rules are non-negotiable because, unlike the Conservatives, we are determined to meet the fiscal rules, not break them time and again.
Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend is a good advocate for businesses, including Alexander Dennis in Scarborough. The Government will soon publish a new national procurement policy statement, which will set out our priorities for public procurement in support of our mission to grow the economy. In addition to the answer I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), we recognise the importance of buses in growing our economy by getting people to work, but also the opportunities to use public procurement to buy more buses made in this country, supporting good jobs here in Britain.
Rachel Reeves
Bringing stability back to our economy by fixing the public finances is the No. 1 thing we can do to help businesses to grow, alongside our planning reforms to make it easier to build things in Britain and our reforms to the pension system to help businesses access long-term patient capital. As for agricultural property relief, the latest figures show that the top 7% of claims—117 claims—accounted for 40% of the total value of the relief, costing the taxpayer £219 million. We cannot afford to carry on like that, which is why we made those progressive and fair reforms in the Budget.
Rachel Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I know that the cost of living has a deep impact on all our constituents, including in Coatbridge and Bellshill. Like my hon. Friend, I was pleased to see the reduction in inflation last week. The Bank of England’s independence is sacrosanct to carry on those efforts. In addition, we increased the minimum wage in the Budget, we have reformed universal credit to reduce deductions and we have extended the household support fund, all to help ensure that working families have more money in their pockets.
UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)
Growth is the No. 1 mission of this Labour Government. To grow the economy, we need to help Great British businesses to export around the world, including to China, the second biggest economy in the world and our fourth-largest trading partner. Not engaging is simply not an option. That is why I led a delegation, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority and representatives of some of Britain’s largest financial service firms, including HSBC, Standard Chartered and Schroders, to the 2025 UK-China economic and financial dialogue—the first of its kind since 2019.
This dialogue has delivered a set of tangible benefits to ensure that British firms have greater access to the Chinese market, while safeguarding our national security—the first duty of any Government. In China, I met outstanding British companies, such as Brompton, Jaguar Land Rover and AstraZeneca, that will benefit from the steps that we have agreed. We have worked to lift market access barriers across a range of goods and services, particularly in the agrifood sector. On financial services, we have successfully secured new licences and quota allocations for UK firms to improve operating access in China. We agreed to co-operate further, including by renewing our shared commitment to the UK-China stock connect scheme, first launched in 2019, by deepening our co-operation on wealth management through a UK-China wealth connect scheme, and by progressing initiatives on pensions and sustainable finance, delivering significant benefits for UK firms and the City of London. I am pleased that China agreed to issue its first ever overseas sovereign green bond in London in 2025, underlining the UK’s position as a global capital for high-quality sustainable finance.
The UK is a global leader in financial services. There are significant opportunities to expand our presence in new markets, and the tangible outcomes we have delivered this week will help to deliver that. These steps are part of a wider programme to make substantive progress on improving arrangements for UK exporters and investors, as reflected in new agreements on vaccine approvals, fertiliser, whisky labelling, legal services, automotives and accountancy, which have set us on course for this dialogue to unlock £1 billion of value for the UK economy.
These outcomes, agreed with my counterpart Vice-Premier He Lifeng, represent pragmatic co-operation in action, and support secure and resilient economic growth, because security and economic growth go hand in hand. That means finding the right way to build a stable and balanced relationship with China that is in our national interest—one that recognises the importance of co-operation in addressing the global issues that we face, of competing where our interests differ, and of challenging robustly whenever that is required. In Beijing and Shanghai, I was clear that while we must co-operate on areas of mutual interest, we will confidently challenge on areas where we disagree. I expressed our country’s real economic and trade concerns to the Chinese, including about trade imbalances and economic security, and I raised concerns about Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, human rights, and restrictions on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, including the case of Jimmy Lai and the completely unjustified sanctions against British parliamentarians.
A key outcome of this dialogue is that we have secured China’s commitment to improving existing channels, so that we can openly discuss sensitive issues and the ways in which they impact our economy, because if we do not engage with China, we cannot raise our real concerns. This dialogue is just one part of our engagement with trading partners across the world. Since becoming Chancellor, I have been to New York, Washington, Toronto and Brussels to build our global economic relationships, while my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary has travelled to the Gulf to boost trade and investment, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is engaging with partners all over the world to deliver growth that benefits people across the United Kingdom.
We must continue to go further, faster, in driving economic growth to make working people better off. That is why the Prime Minister launched our artificial intelligence opportunities action plan yesterday. It throws the full weight of Government behind AI in the UK to revolutionise our public services and make our economy more productive. It is why next week I will talk to business leaders, investors and entrepreneurs at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos to make the case that the UK is one of the best places in the world in which to invest. In the coming weeks, I will set out further details of our plans to kick-start growth in the economy after 14 years of failure from the Conservative party.
Rachel Reeves
The shadow Chancellor is simply not serious. I was on the Opposition side of the House for 14 years, and I think that after a statement one usually asks some questions.
We heard a great deal from the right hon. Gentleman about what he would not do, but we heard absolutely nothing about what he would do. Now we can see what happens when the Leader of the Opposition tells the shadow Cabinet that it should not have any policies. As far as I can tell, the Conservative party’s economic strategy is to say that the UK should not engage with the second largest economy in the world, or indeed with our nearest neighbours and our biggest trading partners in the European Union. The right hon. Gentleman’s economic strategy is to support higher spending but none of the right decisions that are required to deliver sound public finances, and his economic strategy is to ignore the mistakes of the past with no apology to the British people for his part in Liz Truss’s mini-Budget that crashed the economy. I appreciate that, having said that, I may now receive a “cease and desist” letter from her later.
One question that the shadow Chancellor did ask was: why did I go to China? I went to secure tangible benefits for British businesses trading overseas. The right hon. Gentleman said that it was not worth it; let him say that to the representatives of HSBC, Standard Chartered, Prudential, Schroders and the London Stock Exchange who attended those meetings with me last week, all of whom have spoken of the difference that it will make.
I have been under no illusion about the scale of challenges that we face, after 14 years of stagnant economic growth, higher debt and economic uncertainty, and we have seen global economic uncertainty play out in the last week, but leadership is not about ducking these challenges; it is about rising to them. The economic headwinds we face are a reminder that we should—indeed, we must—go further and faster in our plan to kick-start economic growth, which plunged under the last Government, by bringing stability to the public finances after years of instability under the Conservative party, unlocking investment that plummeted under the previous Government and pushing ahead with essential reforms to our economy and public services. That is my message to the House today, because if we get it right, the prize on offer to us—to the British people—is immense: the opportunity to make working people better off by making Britain better off. That is the mandate this Government have, and that is what we will deliver.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to growth in this country and to encouraging investment in the UK. Listening to the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), we would think the country was going to hell in a handcart. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is no time for panic, that it is perfectly possible to manage any pressures on the Budget through astute management of public spending, and that we are a very long way from the approach taken during the years of austerity under the Conservative party?
Rachel Reeves
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for that question. I set out this Government’s fiscal rules at the Budget in October: we will pay for day-to-day spending through tax receipts, and we will get debt down as a share of the economy. We remain committed to those fiscal rules and will meet them at all times.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Rachel Reeves
At the Budget in October, we had to fill a £22 billion black hole left by the previous Government. We will never have to repeat a Budget like this one, because we will not have to clear up the mess of the previous Government ever again.
Rachel Reeves
As my hon. Friend will know, in the autumn Budget and phase 1 of the spending review, more than £1 billion was made available to local government, including £600 million for social care. The allocation of that money will be set out in the normal way over the next few weeks, so that local government is funded properly and can deliver the services that it needs to deliver.
Rachel Reeves
I happily join my hon. Friend in welcoming Mansfield’s success. We have launched a revamped fair payment code, under which signatories commit to paying their suppliers on time, and the disability finance code for entrepreneurship. That comes on top of reforms announced at the Budget to protect small businesses, such as doubling the employment allowance to £10,500, and our commitment to maintaining the small profits rate and marginal relief at their current rates and thresholds, as well as to freezing the small business multiplier for 2025-26—
Rachel Reeves
And like my hon. Friend, I look forward to small business Saturday this week—
Mr Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] No, we are going to have a little talk now, because this is not fair; I have to get all these other Members in. I understand that these are set questions, but questions and answers should be short—it works both ways—otherwise I cannot get Members in and it makes my job impossible. Please work with me.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(6 months, 1 week ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)
In July, a Treasury assessment of public spending showed that this Government inherited a £22 billion black hole in the public finances. I took immediate action—[Interruption.] Those on the Opposition Benches may not like it, but it is true. [Interruption.]
Rachel Reeves
There are not many Conservative Members, but they still make quite a lot of noise.
I took immediate action by identifying savings and making reforms to the spending and fiscal framework to ensure that never again can a Government be allowed to make unfunded commitments, and to leave their successors with a massive black hole, as the Leader of the Opposition and the previous Chancellor did. As my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said to the House yesterday, the Budget will confirm the detail of the robust fiscal rules—this was set out in our manifesto—and will set out tax and spending plans, alongside an updated forecast from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility.
Mr Speaker
Order. Who wants to go for that cup of tea? Normally this happens at Prime Minister’s questions; I do not want it starting in Treasury questions.
Rachel Reeves
All of the above. That is why my hon. Friend is in his place and Conservative Members are on the Opposition Benches.
Rachel Reeves
I know that the hon. Gentleman is a proud supporter of businesses big and small in his constituency and across Northern Ireland. I will set out more detail in tomorrow’s Budget, including on business rates, but I recognise how important it is for us to support small businesses, so that they can grow and create jobs right across the United Kingdom.
Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend makes a really important point, which I think is familiar to all of us in our communities, about the cost of housing outstretching people’s incomes. In our manifesto we committed to building 1.5 million new homes, including social housing, which is so important and can give security to people who would otherwise be left in insecure housing in the private rented sector.
Mr Speaker
As this is his farewell question time, let us now come to the shadow Chancellor.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Farron, please do not take complete advantage. I think you have slightly strayed from the original question. Chancellor, if you want to have a go at it, by all means do so, but I will understand if you do not.
Rachel Reeves
The rural economy plays an incredibly important role in our economic prosperity as a country, and boosting food security and biodiversity is obviously incredibly important to a whole range of this Government’s objectives. I will ensure that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs hears loud and clear the message from the hon. Member, and I am sure he will include it as part of his submission to the spending review on 30 October.
Rachel Reeves
The Government have committed to the triple lock not just for this year, but for the duration of this Parliament. That means that pensioners are £900 better off than they were a year ago. Based on September earnings and inflation data, we will uprate pensions next year by whichever is higher: 2.5%, inflation or average earnings. We are ensuring that pensioners get the pensions that they are entitled to and have contributed to.
Rachel Reeves
That is the purpose of elections, and at the last election, this Government achieved a sizeable majority for our missions, including growing the economy, improving living standards and making working people better off. We have just got started, and that is what we are absolutely determined to do, in order to deliver on the mandate we got on 4 July.
Rachel Reeves
Let me respond directly on the issue of Ukraine. In my first couple of weeks in this job, I had the pleasure of meeting Minister Marchenko from Ukraine, and made a commitment to him to go ahead with the extraordinary revenue acceleration programme. It is important that we work together across the House to support the Ukrainian people against the Russian invasion. In the previous Parliament, Labour always supported the Government when they took action to support the Ukrainian people, and I hope that that cross-party support can continue.
Mr Speaker
Can I remind everybody that this is topical questions? I have a big list to get through. Rachael Maskell will give us a good example.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Rachel Reeves
The basic state pension is worth £900 more than it was a year ago, and will go up again in April next year because of the triple lock, which we have committed to for the duration of this Parliament. We have already written to York council and are working with local authorities across the country to boost take-up of pension credit, because this Government, unlike the last Government, are determined to ensure that 800,000 people entitled to pension credit actually receive it.
Public Spending: Inheritance
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Rachel Reeves(9 months, 1 week ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)
Before I begin my statement, my thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the events in Southport, and I am sure that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to our emergency services who are dealing with this ongoing situation.
On my first day as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I asked Treasury officials to assess the state of public spending. That work is now complete and I am today presenting it to this House. In this statement, I will do three things. First, I will expose the scale—and the seriousness—of what has been uncovered; second, I will lay out the immediate action that we are taking to deal with the inheritance; and third, I will set out our longer-term plans to fix the foundations of our economy. Let me take each of these points in turn.
First, I turn to the inheritance. Before the election, I said that we would face the worst inheritance since the second world war: taxes at a 70-year high, debt through the roof, and an economy only just coming out of recession. I knew all of those things, and during the campaign, I was honest about them and about the difficult choices that they meant. The British people knew them too. That is why they voted for change. But upon my arrival at the Treasury three weeks ago, it became clear that there were things that I did not know—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. This is an important statement for all constituents, including mine. If I am struggling to hear it, they are struggling at home as well. You will all get your chance to ask questions; I think it is more important to hear, and then comment.
Rachel Reeves
There were things that the Conservative party covered up—covered up from the Opposition, from this House and from the country. That is why today we are publishing a detailed audit of the real spending situation, a copy of which will be laid in the House of Commons Library. I take this opportunity to thank the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), for his leadership, and Treasury officials for all their work in producing this document.
Let me now explain what that document has uncovered. The previous Government published their plans for day-to-day spending in the spring Budget in March, but when I arrived at the Treasury, I was alerted by officials on the very first day that that was not how much the Government had expected to spend this year. It was not even close; in fact, the total pressure on those budgets across a range of areas was an additional £35 billion. Once we account for the slippage in budgets that we usually see over a year and the reserve of £9 billion designed to respond to genuinely unexpected events, that means that we have inherited a projected overspend of £22 billion. That is a £22 billion hole in the public finances now—not in the future, but now. It is £22 billion of spending this year that was covered up by the Conservative party. If left unaddressed, it would mean a 25% increase in the budget deficit this year, so today I will set out the necessary and urgent work that I have already done to reduce that pressure on the public finances by £5.5 billion this year and over £8 billion next year.
Let me be clear: I am not talking about costs for future years that the previous Government signed up to but did not include, like the compensation for infected blood, which has cross-party support. I am not talking about the state of public services in the future, like the crisis in our prisons that they have left for us to fix. I am talking about the money that the previous Government were already spending this year and had no ability to pay for, which they hid from the country. They had exhausted the reserve and they knew that, but nobody else did. They ducked the difficult decisions, put party before country, and continued to make unfunded commitment after unfunded commitment, knowing that the money was not there. That has resulted in the position that we have now inherited: the reserve was spent more than three times over only three months into the financial year, and the previous Government told no one.
The scale of this overspend is not sustainable, and to not act is simply not an option. This month, we have seen official Office for National Statistics figures showing that borrowing is higher this year than the Office for Budget Responsibility expected, and the disaster of Liz Truss’s mini-Budget shows what happens if we do not take tough decisions to maintain economic stability. Some, including the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt), have claimed that the books were open. How dare they? It is not true, and I will tell the House why: there are very clear instances of specific budgets that were overspent and unfunded promises that were made, but that—crucially—the OBR was not aware of for its March forecast. I will take each in turn.
The first is the asylum system. The forecast for the number of asylum seekers has risen dramatically since the last spending review, and costs for asylum support have risen sevenfold in the past three years, but instead of reflecting those costs in the Home Office budget for this year, the previous Government covered up the true extent of the crisis and its spending implications. The document I am publishing today reveals a projected overspend on the asylum system, including the previous Government’s failed Rwanda plan, of more than £6.4 billion for this year alone. That figure was unfunded and undisclosed.
Next, in the wake of the pandemic, demand for rail services fell. Instead of developing a proper plan to adjust to that new reality, the Government handed out cash to rail companies to make up for passenger shortfalls, but failed to budget for this adequately. Because of that, and because of industrial action, there is now an overspend of £1.6 billion in the transport budget. That was unfunded and undisclosed.
Since 2022, the Government, with the support of the whole House, have rightly provided military assistance to Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion. The spending audit found that there was not enough money set aside in the reserve to fund all these costs. We will continue to honour these commitments in full, and unlike the previous Government, we will make sure that they are always fully funded.
On top of these new pressures, since 2021 inflation was above the Bank of England’s target for 33 months in a row—hitting 11% at its peak—but the previous Government had not held a spending review since 2021, which means that they never fully reflected the impact of inflation in departmental budgets. That had a direct impact on budgets for public sector pay.
When the last spending review was conducted, it was assumed that pay awards would be 2% this year. Ordinarily, the Government are expected to give evidence to the pay review bodies on affordability, but extraordinarily, this year the previous Government provided no guidance on what could or could not be afforded to the pay review bodies. That is almost unheard of, but that is exactly what they did. Worse still, the former Education Secretary had the pay review body recommendations sitting on her desk. Instead of responding and dealing with the consequences, the Government shirked the decisions that needed to be taken.
I will not repeat the previous Government’s mistakes. Where they provided no transparency to the public, and no certainty for public services, we will be open about the decisions that are needed and the steps that we are taking. That begins with accepting in full the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies. The details of these awards are being published today. That is the right decision for the people who work in, and most importantly the people who use, our public services. It gives hard-working staff the pay rises they deserve while ensuring that we can recruit and retain the people we need.
It should not have taken this long to come to these decisions and I do not want us to be in this position again, so I will consider options to reform the timetable for responding to the pay review bodies in the future. This decision is in the best interests of our economy too: the last Government presided over the worst set of strikes in a generation, which caused chaos and misery for the British public and wreaked havoc on the public finances. Industrial action in the NHS alone cost the taxpayer £1.7 billion last year. That is why I am pleased to announce today that the Government have agreed an offer to the junior doctors that the British Medical Association is recommending to its members.
My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary will set out further details. Let me pay tribute to him: his leadership on the issue has paved the way to ending a dispute that has caused waiting lists to spiral, operations to be delayed and agony for patients to be prolonged. Today marks the start of a new relationship between the Government and staff working in our national health service, and the whole country will welcome that.
Where the previous Government ducked the difficult decisions, I am taking action. Knowing what they did about the state of the public finances, they continued to make unfunded commitment after unfunded commitment that they knew they could not afford, putting party before country and leaving us with an overspend of £22 billion this year. Where they presided over recklessness, I will bring responsibility. I will take immediate action. Let me set it out in detail.
On pay, I have today set out our decision to meet the recommendations of the pay review bodies. Because the previous Government failed to prepare for these recommendations in the departmental budgets, they come at an additional cost of £9 billion this year. The first difficult choice I am making is to ask all Departments to find savings to absorb as much of this as possible, totalling at least £3 billion. To support Departments as they do this, I will work with them to find savings ahead of the autumn Budget, including through measures to stop all non-essential spending on consultancy and Government communications. I am also taking action to ask Departments to find 2% savings in their back-office costs.
I will now deal with a series of commitments made by the previous Government that they did not fund, because if we cannot afford it, we cannot do it. First, at the Conservative party conference last year, the former Prime Minister announced the introduction of a new qualification: the advanced British standard. That is a commitment costing nearly £200 million next year, rising to billions across future years. This was supposed to be the former Prime Minister’s legacy, but it turns out that he did not put aside a single penny to pay for it. So we will not go ahead with that policy, because if we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.
Next, the Illegal Migration Act 2023, passed by the previous Government, made it impossible to process asylum applications or remove people who have no right to be here.
Instead, they relied on a doomed policy to send asylum seekers to Rwanda on planes that never took off, leaving tens of thousands of people stuck in hotels on the public purse. We need a properly controlled and managed asylum system where rules are enforced, so that those with no right to be here are swiftly removed. So we have scrapped their failed Rwanda scheme, which placed huge pressure on the Home Office budget. To bring down these costs as soon as possible, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already laid legislation to remove the retrospective element of the Illegal Migration Act, which will significantly reduce the use of hotel accommodation. These measures will save nearly £800 million this year and avoid costs spiralling even further next year. This was a bad use of taxpayers’ money, and we will not do it.
The previous Government claimed they were levelling up the country. They made promise after promise to the British people, but the spending audit has uncovered that some of those commitments were not worth the paper that they were written on. At autumn statement last year, the former Chancellor announced £150 million for an investment opportunity fund, but not a single project has been supported from that fund.
So following discussions with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, I am cancelling it today, because if we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.
The previous Government also made a series of commitments on transport, promises that people expected to be delivered and promises that many Members across this House campaigned on in good faith, but the Conservative party has failed them. We have seen from the National Audit Office the chaos that the previous Government presided over, with projects over budget and delayed again and again. The spending audit has revealed £1 billion of unfunded transport projects that have been committed to next year, so my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary will undertake a thorough review of these commitments. As part of that work, she has agreed not to move forwards with projects that the previous Government refused to publicly cancel, despite knowing full well that they were unaffordable. That includes proposed work on the A303 and the A27, and my right hon. Friend will also cancel the restoring your railway programme, saving £85 million next year, with individual projects to be assessed through her review. If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.
The previous Government had plans for a retail sale of NatWest shares. We intend to fully exit our shareholding in NatWest by 2025-26. But having considered advice, I have concluded that a retail share sale offer would involve significant discounts that could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds. It would therefore not represent value for money, and it will not go ahead. It is a bad use of taxpayers’ money, and we will not do it.
Next, let me address the unfunded pressures in our NHS and our social care sector.
In October 2020, the Government announced that 40 new hospitals would be built by 2030. Since then, only one new project has opened to patients, and only six have started their main construction activity. The National Audit Office was clear that delivery was wildly off track, but since coming into office, it has become clear that the previous Government continued to maintain their commitment to 40 hospitals without anywhere close to the funding required to deliver them. That gave our constituents false hope. We need to be straight with the British people about what is deliverable and what is affordable, so we will conduct a complete review of the new hospital programme, with a thorough, realistic and costed timetable for delivery.
Adult social care was also neglected by the previous Government. The sector needs reform to improve care and to support staff. In the previous Parliament, the Government made costly commitments to introduce adult social care charging reforms, but they delayed them two years ago because they knew that local authorities were not ready and that their promises were not funded, so it will not be possible to take forward those charging reforms. This will save over £1 billion by the end of next year.
Hon. Members
Mr Speaker
Order. I want Government Members to be quiet as well—I want to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Rachel Reeves
I can understand why people, and Members, are angry. I am angry too. The previous Government let people down. The previous Government made commitment after commitment without knowing where the money was going to come from. They did this repeatedly, knowingly and deliberately.
Today, I am calling out the Conservatives’ cover-up and I am taking the first steps to clean up what they have left behind, but the scale of the inheritance we have been left means that the decisions we have so far announced will not be enough. This level of overspend is not sustainable. Left unchecked, it is a risk to economic stability—and unlike the Conservative party, I will never take risks with our country’s economic stability. It therefore falls to us to take the difficult decisions now to make further in-year savings.
The scale of the situation we are dealing with means incredibly tough choices. I repeat today the commitment that we made in our manifesto to protect the triple lock, but today I am making the difficult decision that those not in receipt of pension credit or certain other means-tested benefits will no longer receive the winter fuel payment, from this year onwards. The Government will continue to provide winter fuel payments worth £200 to households receiving pension credit or £300 to households in receipt of pension credit with someone over the age of 80. Let me be clear: this is not a decision I wanted to make, nor is it the one that I expected to make, but these are the necessary and urgent decisions that I must make. It is the responsible thing to do to fix the foundations of our economy and bring back economic stability.
Alongside this change, I will work with my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary to maximise the take-up of pension credit by bringing forward the administration of housing benefit and pension credit, repeatedly pushed back by the previous Government, and by working with older people’s charities and local authorities to raise awareness of pension credit and help identify households not claiming it.
This is the beginning of a process, not the end. I am announcing today that I will hold a Budget on 30 October, alongside a full economic and fiscal forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility. I have to tell the House that the Budget will involve taking difficult decisions to meet our fiscal rules across spending, welfare and tax. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Mr Speaker, they still don’t get it, do they? Parties in Downing Street, crashing the economy, gambling on the election—party before country, every single time.
It will be a Budget to fix the foundations of our economy, and it will be a Budget built on the principles that this new Government were elected on. First, we will treat taxpayers’ money with respect by ensuring that every pound is well spent, and we will interrogate every line of public spending to ensure that it represents value for money. Secondly, I can repeat from the Dispatch Box our manifesto commitment that we will not increase taxes on working people. That means that we will not increase national insurance, the basic, higher or additional rates of income tax, or VAT. Today, my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary is publishing further detail on our manifesto commitments to close tax loopholes and clamp down on tax avoidance to ensure that we bring in that money as quickly as possible. My third principle is that we will meet our fiscal rules: we will move the current budget into balance and we will get debt falling as a share of the economy by the end of the forecast.
These are the principles that will guide me at the Budget, but let me be honest: challenging trade-offs will remain, so today I am launching a multi-year spending review. This review will set departmental budgets for at least three years, providing the long-term certainty that has been lacking for too long. As part of that process, final budgets for this year and budgets for next year, 2025-26, will be set alongside the Budget on 30 October.
I will look closely at our welfare system, because if someone can work, they should work. That is a principle of this Government, yet under the previous Government, welfare spending ballooned, while inactivity has risen sharply in recent years. We will ensure that the welfare system is focused on supporting people into employment, and we will assess the unacceptable levels of fraud and error in our welfare system and take forward action to bring that down.
To fix the foundations of our economy, we must ensure that never again can a Government keep from the public the true state of our public finances. The fiscal framework I have inherited had several flaws. It allowed the Government to run down the clock on departmental budgets to avoid difficult decisions and to push them back beyond the election, so I am announcing the most significant set of changes to our framework since the inception of the Office for Budget Responsibility. These changes will come into effect in the autumn.
First, we have introduced legislation to ensure that we can never again see a repeat of the mini-Budget. Secondly, we will require the Treasury to share with the Office for Budget Responsibility its assessment of immediate public spending pressures, and we will enshrine that rule in the charter for budget responsibility, so that no Government can ever again cover up the true state of our public finances. Finally, we will ensure that never again do public service budgets get set at only a few months’ notice. Instead, spending reviews will take place every two years, with a minimum planning horizon of three years, to avoid uncertainty for Departments and to boost stability for our public finances. I have already spoken to the chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility to brief him on the findings of our audit and our reforms.
By launching the spending review, I am also today starting the firing gun on a new approach to public service reform to drive greater productivity in the public sector. We will embed an approach to government that is mission-led, that is reform-driven, with a greater focus on prevention and the integration of services at a national and local level, and that is enabled by new technology, including through the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on the opportunities of artificial intelligence to improve our public services. We will establish a new office of value for money, with an immediate focus on identifying areas where we can reduce or stop spending, or improve its value.
We will appoint a covid corruption commissioner to bring back money that is owed to taxpayers after contracts worth billions of pounds were handed out by the previous Government during the pandemic. Ahead of the spending review, I will also review the cost of our political system, including restricting eligibility for ministerial severance payments based on time in office. I expect all levels of government to be run effectively and efficiently, and I will work with leaders across our country to deliver just that. That means effective local government, a civil service delivering good value for the British taxpayer and reform of our political institutions, including the House of Lords, to keep costs as low as possible.
The Budget and spending review will also set out further progress on our No. 1 mission: to grow our economy. Economic growth is the only way to sustainably improve our public services and our public finances, so we will use the spending review to prioritise specific areas of capital investment that leverage in billions more in private investment. It will not happen overnight—it will take time and it will take focus—but we have already made significant progress, including: planning reforms to get Britain building; a national wealth fund to catalyse private investment; a pensions investment review to unlock capital for our businesses; Skills England to create a shared national ambition to boost skills across our country; and work across government on a new industrial strategy, driven forward by a growth mission board, to ensure that we deliver on our commitments.
Our country has fundamental strengths on which we can build, and I look forward to welcoming business leaders to the international investment summit in Britain later this year. I know that if we can create the stable conditions that investors need to thrive, we will return confidence to our economy so that entrepreneurs and businesses big and small know that this is the best place in the world to start and grow a business. That is the bedrock on which economic growth must be built.
The inheritance from the previous Government is unforgiveable. After the chaos of partygate, when they knew that trust in politics was at an all-time low, they gave false hope to Britain. When people were already being hurt by their cost of living crisis, they promised solutions that they knew could never be paid for, roads that would never be built, public transport that would never arrive and hospitals that would never treat a single patient. They spent like there was no tomorrow because they knew that someone else would pick up the bill. Then, in the election—perhaps this is the most shocking part—they campaigned on a platform to do it all over again, with more unfunded tax cuts and more spending pledges, all the time knowing that they had no ability to pay for them. No regard for the taxpayer. No respect for ordinary, hard-working people.
I will never do that. I will restore our country’s economic stability. I will make the tough choices. I will fix the foundations of our economy so that we can rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off. I commend this statement to the House.
Jeremy Hunt
The Chancellor says that the information is new, but she told the Financial Times:
“You don’t need to win an election to find”
out the state of public finances, as
“We’ve got the OBR now.”
Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said:
“The state of public finances were apparent pre-election to anyone who cared to look”
which is why he and other independent figures say that her argument is not credible and will not wash.
Those public finances were audited by the OBR just 10 weeks before the election was called. We are now expected to believe that, in that short period, a £20 billion black hole has magically emerged, but for every single day in that period—in fact, since January, in line with constitutional convention—the right hon. Lady had privileged access to the Treasury permanent secretary. She could have found out absolutely anything she needed. Will she confirm to the House that she did have meetings with the permanent secretary of the Treasury before the election? Will she tell the House whether they discussed public finances? Will she tell the House whether they discussed any of the pressures that she is talking about today? If so, why are we only hearing today what she wants to do about them? That is why today’s exercise is not economic—it is political.
The Chancellor wants to blame the last Conservative Government for tax rises and project cancellations that she has been planning all along. The trouble is, even her own published numbers expose the fiction behind today’s announcement. Just four days ago, she presented to the House the Government’s estimates of spending plans for the year. Those estimates are a legal requirement. The official guidance manual is clear that Departments are responsible for ensuring that estimates are consistent with their “best forecast of requirements”. They are signed off by the most senior civil servants—the accounting officers—in every Department. Yet, four days on, she is saying that those estimates are wrong. Who is right: politically neutral civil servants or a political Chancellor? If she is right, will she ask the cabinet secretary to investigate those civil servants and apologise to the House for laying misleading estimates? Of course not, because she knows that those civil servants are right and today’s black hole is spurious, just like when she says that she inherited the
“worst set of economic circumstances”
since the second world war. When BBC Verify asked a professor at the London School of Economics about that claim, he responded:
“I struggle to find a metric that would make that statement correct.”
The metrics speak for themselves. Inflation is 2% today —nearly half what it was in 2010 when we had to clear up the mess inherited from a Labour Government. Unemployment is nearly half what it was then, with more new jobs than nearly anywhere else in Europe. So far this year, we are the fastest growing G7 economy. Over the next six years, the IMF says that we will grow faster than France, Italy, Germany and Japan.
Just two days before the election was called, the managing director of the IMF praised the previous Government’s handling of the economy, and said it was in a good place. This week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that it was
“not a bad situation to take charge of”
and certainly not comparable to the 1940s or 1970s. If the right hon. Lady is in charge of the economy, it is time to stop trash talking it. What is the point of going to New York or Brazil to bang the drum for more investment if she comes home with a cock and bull story about how bad everything is? She should stop playing politics with Britain’s reputation and get on with running the economy.
When it comes to public finances, will the Chancellor confirm to the House that, far from being broke and broken, as Downing Street briefed the media, the forecast deficit today is 4.4%, compared with 10.3% when Labour left office in 2010? In other words, when Labour was last in office, we were borrowing double the current levels. Will she confirm another difference between today and 2010? The Conservatives came to office then, honest about our plans and saying straightforwardly that we needed to cut the deficit. She has just won an election telling us repeatedly that taxes will not go up. How many seats were won on the back of commitments not to raise tax, while she is quietly planning to do the exact opposite?
On the details that the Chancellor has announced today, will she confirm that around half of today’s fictitious black hole comes from discretionary public sector pay awards—in other words, not something that she has to do, but something where she has a choice? Will she confirm to the House that, apart from the teachers recommendation, none of the other pay review body recommendations was seen by the last Government, as they arrived after the election was called? Today she has chosen to accept those recommendations, but before doing so, was she advised by officials to ask unions for productivity enhancements before accepting above-inflation pay awards, to help to pay for those awards, as the last Government did? If she was advised to do that, why did she reject that advice and simply tell the unions, “Here’s your money, thanks for your support”? Will she confirm—[Interruption.] I know Labour Members do not like the truth, but here it is. Will she confirm that one of the reasons for her funding gap is that she has chosen to backdate a 22% pay award to junior doctors, to cover the time when they were striking?
We are just three months into the financial year, so why did the Chancellor not mention today that, at the start of the year, the Treasury had a reserve of £14 billion for unexpected revenue costs, and £4 billion for unexpected capital costs? Additionally, why has she not accounted for the Treasury’s ability to manage down in-year pressures on the reserve—last year alone by £9 billion? Why has she apparently not accounted for underspends—typically £12 billion a year? Has she totally abandoned the £12 billion of welfare savings planned by the last Government? If so, will she confirm that to the House? Has she also abandoned £20 billion of annual productivity savings planned by the last Government? If not, why are they not in her numbers? Finally, for someone who claims continuously the mantle of fiscal rectitude, will she confirm that in order to pay for her public spending plans, she will not change her fiscal rules to target a different debt measure, so she can increase borrowing and debt by the back door?
Every Chancellor faces pressures on public finances. After a pandemic and an energy crisis, those pressures are particularly challenging, which is why in autumn 2022, the previous Government took painful but necessary decisions on tax and spend. But we knew that, if we continued to take difficult decisions on pay, productivity and welfare reform, we could live within our means and start to bring taxes down. She, on the other hand, knew perfectly well that a Labour Government would duck those difficult decisions. She has caved in to the unions on pay, left welfare reform out of the King’s Speech and soft-pedalled on our productivity programme. That is a choice, not a necessity.
That choice means that taxes will have to go up and the right hon. Lady chose not to tell us before the election. Instead, in 24 days—just 24 days—she has announced £7.3 billion for GB Energy, £8.3 billion for the national wealth fund and around £10 billion for public sector pay awards. That is £24 billion in 24 days: around £1 billion for every day she has been in office, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab for her profligacy.
Doing it this way, she makes the first major misstep of her time as Chancellor, because that great office of state depends more than any on trust—[Interruption.] In her first big moment, she breaks that trust with an utterly bogus attempt to hoodwink the public about the choices she has. Over 50 times in the election, Labour told us it had no plans to raise taxes. Now, in a U-turn that will forever shame this Labour Government, she is laying the ground to break her word. When she does, her first Budget will become the biggest betrayal in history by a new Chancellor. Working families will never forgive her.
Rachel Reeves
The shadow Chancellor had an opportunity this afternoon to admit what he had done, the legacy he had left. Instead, he takes no responsibility. The word the country was looking for today was sorry. He could not find those words; no wonder the Conservative party so definitively lost the trust of the British people at the election three and a half weeks ago. We say never again. [Interruption.] Never again should a party that plays fast and loose with the public finances be in charge of the public finances—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Can I just say to the Whips, who hold responsible jobs and I expect them to keep them that way, that just because they might not be at the end of the Bench does not mean they have to chunter all the way through and pass comment? I don’t need it and I won’t put up with it.
Rachel Reeves
First, specifically on the black hole, we could not have known these numbers because the Conservative party did not tell the OBR these numbers. That is why we are in the position we are in today. That is the biggest scandal of them all.
The shadow Chancellor asks about the estimates. He should recognise the estimates we laid yesterday because he produced them. We had to lay those estimates to allow public spending to continue, but since those estimates were produced, information was given to us by Treasury officials about the true scale of the overspending by the Conservative party.
The shadow Chancellor mentions the IFS. Paul Johnson from the IFS has just said that it appears that these overspends are genuinely unfunded—words not from me, but from the independent IFS, which the shadow Chancellor referenced.
The shadow Chancellor mentions what happened to the reserve. Well, the reserve has been spent, shadow Chancellor. It was spent by you three times over. That is why we are in a position of a £22 billion in-year gap between spending that was happening and the funding to produce it.
If the shadow Chancellor could do all the things he spoke about today, why were they not in the forecasts? If he was able, as he says, to make those in-year changes on welfare and productivity, they would have been in the forecasts. They were not.
On the issue of the pay review bodies, the previous Government set the remit for those but they refused to give them any indication of affordability. That is almost unprecedented. The teachers reported before the election and that recommendation sat on the former Education Secretary’s desk. Today, we are drawing a line on the industrial action: the £1.7 billion cost to the NHS alone last year and 1.4 million cancelled appointments. We are incorporating a third of those pay increases into efficiencies in our public services, as the shadow Chancellor suggested we should.
When it comes to tax, I am not going to take any lessons from the Conservative party. The Conservative party took the tax burden to the highest level in 70 years.
The response of the shadow Chancellor just confirms what we already knew: the previous Government were deluded, out of touch and grossly irresponsible. Today, we begin to fix the mess that they have created.
Rachel Reeves
I can confirm that we will be arranging multi-year settlements with local authorities, as well as with Departments. It is extremely important that both Departments and authorities can plan for the future knowing what money is available, rather than running down the clock towards the end of the year.
I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming the announcement that I made today about working with local government to improve the take-up of pension credit. It is woeful that it is so low. It is vital that everyone receives the money to which they are entitled, especially pensioners, which is why we have taken on those recommendations from elderly people’s charities today to ensure that we work with local government to boost take-up of that benefit.