Reeves says Tory record, not her fiscal rules, to blame for tough decisions in spending review – UK politics live | Politics
Key events
Reeves says her changes to fiscal rules last year have allowed an extra £113bn in investment
Reeves says her changes to the fiscal rules last year will make more investment possible.
The decisions that we made in October mean that, for the first time, the Treasury actually takes account of the benefits and not just the costs of investment, and together, the fiscal rules mean that, unlike our predecessors, we will not be balancing the books by cutting investment.
And that is why we can increase investment by over £113bn more than the last government plans, meaning public investment will be at its highest sustained level since the 1970s.
Reeves says Tory record, not her fiscal rules, to blame for tough decisions in spending review
Reeves says in the spending review next week “not every department will get everything that they want”.
And she goes on:
I have had to say no to things that I want to do too, but that is not because of my fiscal rules. It is the result of 14 years of Conservative maltreatment of our public services, our public realm and of our economy.
Reeves is now talking about her fiscal rules.
Now, contrary to some conventional wisdom, I didn’t come into politics because I care passionately about fiscal rules.
I came into politics because I want to make a difference to the lives of working people, because I believe – as strongly now as I did when I was inspired to join the Labour party almost 30 years ago – that every person should have the same opportunities as others.
But rules matter because Liz Truss showed what “the dangers of reckless borrowing” with her mini budget, she says.
And she goes on to attack Reform UK.
It was working people who paid the price [for the Truss mini-budget].
Be in no doubt, Nigel Farage and Reform are itching to repeat that exact same experiment, to pursue those fantasy economics all over again.
And the results – well, they would be the same – market instability, interest rates rising with soaring rents and thousands of pounds extra on families mortgages.
Reeves says opportunity has not been fairly shared. As a Leeds MP, she knows that areas have been held back by decisions made in London.
She says she will hold a regional investment summit later this year with regional mayors.
Reeves says Labour has better record on real wage growth than Tories did in their first 10 years
Reeves says recent figures showed UK to be the fastest growing economy in the G7.
And she says real wages rose more in less than 10 months under Labour than they did in the first 10 years of the last Conservative government.
Reeves says underinvestment has been main barrier to growth in UK
Rachel Reeves is speaking now. She is speaking at the Mellor bus factory in Rochdale.
She starts by saying she wants to explain how Labour will build a stronger Britain.
She knows how hard it has been, she says.
She says the central barrier to growth has been underinvestment.
The central barrier to economic growth has been underinvestment. For too long, Britain has lagged behind every other G7 economy when it comes to business investment as a share of GDP. One of the consequences was that the last parliament was the worst on record for living standards.
Her policy is build on three pillars, she says: stability, reform and investment.
Burnham says good transport powers good growth.
He says Manchester has been a model for this.
(He set out this argument at length in a very interesting speech on this earlier this year.)
Burnham welcomes £2.5bn investment in Greater Manchester's Bee transport network
Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, is introducing Rachel Reeves.
He says he is pleased the government is backing Manchester Bee transport network with £2.5bn. He goes on:
With the funding provided by the government, we will create the UK’s first fully integrated, all-electric, zero emission public transport system, and we will do that by the end of the decade.
Full list of transport investment being announced by Reeves for English city regions
Since it does not seem to be available yet on the Treasury’s website, here is the list of transport projects for English city regions that Rachel Reeves is announcing, as set out in a Treasury press release last night.
Transport investment in England's city regions being announced by Reeves Photograph: HMT
Rachel Reeves to announce £15bn in transport spending amid questions over police cuts
Good morning. A week today Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will unveil the outcome of the spending review, which will set spending budgets – day-to-day (“resource”) and capital – covering most of the rest of this parliament. Many departments will get resource budgets that feel like cuts, but the Treasury has a more positive story to tell on capital spending and today Reeves is giving a speech announcing a £15bn spending spree on transport projects, mostly in the north of England.
Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot have all the details in our splash story.
As Pippa and Jess report, the Home Office is one of three departments that has yet to settle its budget with the Treasury. According to a report in the Times, in a bid to help the Home Office, Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Gavin Stephens, the head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and Graeme Biggar, the head of the National Crime Agency, have written to the PM saying they are “deeply concerned” about what is in offer for the police. They say:
We are deeply concerned that the settlement for policing and the [NCA], without additional investment, risks a retrenchment to what we saw under austerity. This would have far-reaching consequences.
Policing and the NCA have seen a sustained period where income has not kept pace with demand. Often, this has been masked by attempts to defer costs in the hope of more income in future, but that now leaves policing with very limited room for manoeuvre.
A settlement that fails to address our inflation and pay pressures flat would entail stark choices about which crimes we no longer prioritise. The policing and NCA workforce would also shrink each year.
The Times has summarised this in its splash headline as meaning the police chiefs are saying proposed cuts will mean “some crimes must be ignored”. That sounds grim, although the headline writer may have forgotten that many crimes are ignored already. In its election manifesto last year, Labour had a striking line about the police. “Labour has a straightforward vision for policing and criminal justice. When you call the police, they should come.”
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.20am: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, gives a speech in Greater Manchester on infrastructure spending.
9.30am: Torsten Bell, the pensions minister, gives evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee about pensioner poverty.
Morning: Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, is campaigning in Hamilton ahead of the Scottish parliamentary byelection tomorrow.
Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
12.30pm: Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, uses the 10-minute rule bill procedure to propose a bill calling for a public inquiry into “UK involvement in Israeli military operations in Gaza”.
4.40pm (UK time): John Healey, the defence secretary, holds a press conference with his German and Ukrainian counterparts after a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels.
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