Rachel Reeves has today unveiled her first Spending Review, revealing how she will spend billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.
The Chancellor said total departmental budgets would grow by 2.3% a year in real terms and promised a “record cash investment” in the NHS, amounting to an extra £29 billion a year.
Setting out the spending review in the House of Commons, Ms Reeves said the tax hikes and looser borrowing rules allowed her to spend £190 billion more on the day-to-day running of public services and £113 billion on investment.
She promised funding of up to £280m a year to put an end to asylum seeker hotels and boot out illegal migrants by 2029, aiming to save taxpayers £1bn a year.
Other key points include plans in the coming weeks for a “Northern Powerhouse Rail”, spending £4.5bn on the budget for schools in the next few years as well as giving police a 2.3% increase in spending.
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Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told the Cabinet that the spending review “marks the end of the first phase of this Government, as we move to a new phase that delivers on the promise of change for working people all around the country and invests in Britain’s renewal”.
The Chancellor said her “driving purpose” was “to make working people, in all parts of our country, better off” as she promised cash to rebuild schools and hospitals, confirmed funding for nuclear power schemes and major transport projects across the country.
However, Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride tore apart the plans as a mere “fantasy” in a scathing attack this afternoon.
He said: “The Chancellor knows she will have to come back in the autumn with more tax rises to fund these plans. Or can she assure us right now that this is not the case? Yes or no.
“We know that the Deputy Prime Minister has helpfully provided her with an entire brochure of tax rises that she will no doubt be perusing over the summer, the ‘Corbynist catalogue’.”
Mr Stride concluded by branding Rachel Reeves’ spending review speech as a “masterclass in delusion”, saying: “Her tone today suggests that all is well, the sunny uplands await.”
“What a hopeless conceit. A masterclass in delusion.”