Further welfare cuts anticipated as Rachel Reeves prepares to ship spring assertion – UK politics stay | Spring assertion 2025

Rachel Reeves won’t be elevating taxes within the spring assertion at the moment, despite the fact that there are lots of folks on the left who would like taxes to rise as an alternative choice to public spending being minimize. Reeves got here into workplace promising just one budget-type occasion a yr, and that’s one cause why she shouldn’t be mountaineering taxes at the moment. But primarily it’s as a result of she thinks Britons are comparatively extremely taxed already, as a result of Labour was elected on a manifesto ruling out many of the apparent attainable tax rises and since she’s not satisfied a sweeping wealth tax would work.

But that has not stopped campaigners calling for a wealth tax, and yesterday about 300 folks attended a ‘Tax the Super-Rich’ rally outdoors the Treasury. It was organised by charities and social justice marketing campaign teams, however one of many audio system was Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green celebration, which is in favour of a wealth tax.

Caitlin Boswell, head of advocacy at Tax Justice UK, one of many teams concerned, stated:

Across the nation, inequality is hovering and persons are being left behind, struggling to make ends meet and coping with damaged public companies, all whereas the very richest get richer. Choosing to make minimize after minimize to the poorest and most marginalised, whereas leaving the huge useful resource of the intense wealth of the tremendous wealthy untouched, is immoral, dangerous, and won’t ship for our communities or the financial system.

Here is an in a single day Guardian article by Phillip Inman and Aletha Adu on what to anticipate from at the moment’s spring assertion.

And right here is an article by Richard Partington with 5 graphics illustrating the figures that specify the alternatives Rachel Reeves is making.

The British Medical Journal, a number one medical publication, has printed an article by 4 public well being specialists saying the illness and incapacity profit cuts introduced final week – the one largest minimize in at the moment’s spring assertion bundle – might result in deaths.

The article says:

A key proposal within the inexperienced paper is to tighten entry to Pip [personal independence payment] – a profit overlaying the additional prices of incapacity or long run well being circumstances – by elevating the eligibility threshold. The Fraser of Allander Institute, an impartial financial analysis centre, estimates that saving £1bn a yr might imply about 250 000 fewer folks receiving Pip. Existing proof suggests that is unlikely to extend employment charges. Previous governments have sought to limit eligibility to, and ranges of, these advantages. Most notably, simply over a million present recipients had their eligibility re-assessed between 2010 and 2013, with advantages eliminated if the assessor thought they had been match for work. This led to a rise in 290 000 folks with psychological well being issues, elevated antidepressant prescribing, and an estimated 600 suicides.

One of the group, Prof Gerry McCartney – a specialist in wellbeing financial system on the University of Glasgow, stated:

There is now substantial proof that cuts to social safety since 2010 have basically harmed the well being of the UK inhabitants.

Implementing but extra cuts will due to this fact end in extra untimely deaths. It is important that the UK Government understands this proof and takes a distinct coverage strategy.

Keir Starmer (or somebody on his crew, to be extra exact) has posted this message in regards to the spring assertion on social media this morning.

In an period of worldwide change, we are going to ship safety for working folks and renewal for Britain.

Cabinet ministers usually handle a smile for the cameras once they arrive in Downing Street for cupboard. But at the moment, judging by the images, they had been wanting extra downbeat than normal. They had been arriving to listen to Rachel Reeves transient them on the spring assertion, together with the shock further profit cuts revealed in a single day. (See 8.33am.)

Here are a number of the arrival pictures.

We might be opening feedback on the weblog at about 10am. And they are going to keep open till about 3pm. They are closing sooner than normal as a result of our moderator cowl is a bit restricted this week.

Ever since Donald Trump turned US president, Keir Starmer and all his ministers have tried as a lot as attainable to keep away from saying what they give thought to all of the issues being stated and finished by his administration (a lot of that are abhorrent to mainstream UK political opinion). Sometimes Starmer and his crew have adopted the road that it’s not their job to be “commentators”. (Lynton Crosby used to attempt the same argument with the Tories.) This has led to many interviews taking a surreal flip, like Angela Rayner’s on the World at One yesterday, the place she refused repeated makes an attempt to supply any important response to JD Vance, the US vice-president, and Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, denouncing the Europeans as pathetic freeloaders.

But this morning John Healey, the defence secretary, was a bit extra forthcoming. In an interview with Times Radio, requested in regards to the Vance/Hegseth argument, he stated:

I regard it extra of a problem.

Asked once more in regards to the Europeans being described as pathetic freeloaders, he stated:

The Americans have gotten a case, the Americans have completely bought a case, that on defence spending, on European safety, on our help for Ukraine, European nations can and can do extra and the UK is main the way in which.

I’m happy with that on defence spending, on European safety and on Ukraine. It’s why we’re pulling collectively the coalition.

And in an interview on the Today programme, requested about Trump’s particular envoy Steve Witkoff describing Keir Starmer’s Ukraine coverage as posturing, Healey did push again towards Witkoff’s argument, with out criticising him personally. He stated:

I’m proud that the UK, alongside France, is main the coalition of the prepared, prepared to face by Ukraine within the occasion of a negotiated peace simply as we now have by the conflict.

And we’re responding to the US problem to European nations just like the UK to do extra to help Ukraine.

We’re responding to the requirement of Ukraine to say, ‘look, post-ceasefire, what are the security arrangements that give us the confidence that any negotiated peace will, as President Trump has said, be a durable peace’.

John Healey, the defence secretary, has been doing an interview spherical this morning as a result of in a single day the Treasury briefed journalists that Rachel Reeves will announce an additional £2.2bn in defence spending from April within the spring assertion. (Presumably that was the story the Treasury press workplace had been hoping could be main the information bulletins this morning, not the brand new profit cuts).

In its information launch, the Treasury stated:

The chancellor will announce an additional £2.2bn funding enhance for defence from April, as she warns that Britain has to “move quickly in a changing world”.

The funding might be invested in superior applied sciences in order that Britain’s armed forces have the instruments they should compete and win in fashionable warfare. This consists of guaranteeing the funding to suit Royal Navy ships with Directed Energy Weapons by 2027. These weapons can hit a £1 coin from 1km away and take down drones at a distance of 5km.

It will even be used to offer higher houses for navy households by refurbishing the defence property – together with over 36,000 houses just lately introduced again into public possession from the rental sector. In addition to this, the funding will unlock speedy preparatory work, equivalent to web site surveys, planning and structure, for the main redevelopment of armed forces housing by the defence housing technique.

The funding will even assist fund upgrades to infrastructure at His Majesty’s Naval Base Portsmouth, securing its capacity to help Royal Navy operations into the long run.

Defence spending in 2024/25 was round £57bn.

According to the Treasury, in her spring assertion speech later Reeves will say:

In February, the prime minister set out the federal government’s dedication to extend spending on defence to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027 and an ambition to spend 3% of GDP on defence within the subsequent parliament as financial and monetary circumstances enable.

That was the proper determination in a extra insecure world, placing an additional £6.4bn into the defence finances by 2027.

But we now have to maneuver shortly in a altering phrase. And that begins with funding.

So I can at the moment affirm that I’ll present a further £2.2bn for the Ministry of Defence subsequent yr – an additional downpayment on our plans to ship 2.5% of GDP.

This enhance in funding is not only about growing our nationwide safety however growing our financial safety, too.

As defence spending rises, I would like the entire nation to really feel the advantages.

UK inflation has fallen again by greater than forecast to 2.8%, offering some constructive information for Rachel Reeves earlier than she makes her spring assertion, Richard Partington stories.

Good morning. This time final week Stephen Timms, a welfare minister, was doing an interview spherical to defend the £5bn incapacity profit cuts introduced the day before today, and he refused to rule out additional profit cuts sooner or later. Most of us thought he was being cautious due to the danger of additional cuts later on this parliament, or presumably later this yr. I don’t assume anybody anticipated further cuts to be introduced inside days.

But that’s precisely what has occurred. As Heather Stewart, Kiran Stacey and Richard Partington report within the Guardian splash, solely hours earlier than the spring assertion, the Treasury has revealed that the incapacity profit cuts are going to be even deeper than those set out final week. That is as a result of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the federal government’s omnipotent fiscal regulator, has dominated that the Treasury was being unrealistic when it stated the profit cuts would save £5bn. (The OBR might be proper – previously profit “crackdowns” have not often saved as a lot the Treasury forecasts.). And this implies the cuts need to be beefed up, to save lots of one other £1.6bn.

The change was first reported by the Times, which says that “universal credit incapacity benefits for new claimants will now be frozen until 2030 rather than increased in line with inflation” and that there will even be “a small reduction in the basic rate of universal credit in 2029”.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves had been already dealing with a powerful backlash from Labour backbenchers over the profit cuts. This improvement is more likely to exacerbate that, though fairly how seen that might be at the moment is difficult to foretell. Many Labour MPs are alarmed in regards to the cuts in personal, however haven’t spoke out publicly.

John Healey, the defence secretary, has been giving interviews this morning, and he has defended what the Treasury is doing. Referring to the evaluation that final week’s profit cuts will solely save £3.4bn, not £5bn, he instructed Times Radio:

I believe that’s a calculation that we might even see confirmed from the Office of Budget Responsibility about the long run financial savings that our plans to alter the welfare system might convey, and that’s a must-do for any accountable authorities, significantly one which believes within the significance of our social safety system. Doing nothing shouldn’t be an possibility. It’s failing and writing off a younger technology.

Today we might be focusing nearly solely on the spring assertion. Graeme Wearden, who writes the Guardian’s enterprise weblog, might be becoming a member of me right here later, and we might be overlaying the assertion intimately, and bringing you all the very best evaluation and response.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

12.30pm: Rachel Reeves delivers the spring assertion.

2.30pm: Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, holds a press convention.

4.15pm: Reeves holds a press convention.

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