Chancellor Rachel Reeves has delivered the Labour government’s spending review with billions of pounds set aside for housing, the NHS and defence. Here The Mirror looks at the key details
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has set out Labour’s spending plans with multi-billion pound boosts for the NHS, defence and housing.
Unveiling the long-awaited Spending Review, she hit out at the “destructive” Tory austerity she said created a “lost decade” for living standards. The Chancellor said total departmental budgets will grow by 2.3% per year in real terms as she promised to renew Britain after the mess left behind by the Tories.
PM Keir Starmer earlier 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”.
Here The Mirror looks at the key details of the Chancellor’s Spending Review.
NHS funding
The NHS was the big winner in today’s Spending Review with the Chancellor ploughing £29billion into the health service in additional funding by 2028/29.
Ms Reeves said this represents a rise in real-terms of around 3% each year as she described the crisis-hit NHS as the public’s “most treasured” public service.
READ MORE: Rachel Reeves Spending Review LIVE – Affordable housing change and NHS bombshell
“More appointments. More doctors. More scanners. The National Health Service, created by a Labour government, protected, by a Labour government, and renewed, by this Labour Government,” she told MPs in the Commons.
She added: “I am proud to announce today that this Labour Government is making a record cash investment in our NHS, increasing real-terms, day-to-day spending by 3% per year for every year of this spending review.
“An extra £29 billion per year for the day-to-day running of the health service. That is what the British people voted for and that is what we will deliver. “
Affordable housing boost
Hundreds of thousands of new affordable homes will be built over the next decade under a £39billion package announced today. Ms Reeves described it as the “biggest cash injection” in 50 years.
During today’s statement the Chancellor said it will help turn the tide on the country’s housing crisis. It also forms part of the pledge to build 1.5million new homes by 2029.
Ms Reeves said: “Led by (Angela Rayner), we are taking action. I am proud to announce the biggest cash injection into social and affordable housing in 50 years. A new Affordable Homes Programme – in which I am investing £39 billion over the next decade.
“Direct Government funding that will support housebuilding especially for social rent and I am pleased to report that towns and cities including Blackpool, Preston, Sheffield and Swindon already have plans to bring forward bids to build new houses.”
Winter fuel U-turn details
The Chancellor confirmed plans to restore winter fuel payments to millions of pensioners after a major U-turn last month.
OAPs with an income of £35,000 or below in England and Wales will receive the benefit this winter. It is a major uplift from the current £11,500 cut-off point announced last summer.
It means nine million pensioners will now be eligible for the winter support. Around two million pensioners whose income is above £35,000 will have the payment automatically recovered or can opt out from receiving it.
Bus fare cap
Bus passengers will be protected from fare hikes as the £3 cap on single tickets was extended.
In a major boost for bus users, Ms Reeves Reeves said she will protect the nationwide price cap on single trips, which had been due to run out at the end of the year. The cost-of-living lifeline will now be in place across England until March 2027.
Single fares could rise by up to £12 in the worst hit areas if the cap is lifted. The Department for Transport previously said a journey between Leeds and Scarborough could cost £15, while a fare from Hull to York would hit £8.50.
Free school meals
In a major boost to low income families, the Chancellor said free school meals will be extended to more than half a million children.
Keir Starmer unveiled the plans last week to help all kids in families who get Universal Credit in England – in a move that could save parents up to £500 a year. Ms Reeves said the policy will lift 100,000 children out of poverty.
Schools will also get a major boost to per pupil funding, with £4.5billion extra for the core schools budget.
Defence spending
In an “age of insecurity” the Chancellor said defence spending will rise to 2.6% of GDP by 2027. She said the figure includes spending on intelligence agencies. “We will make Britain a defence industrial superpower,” Ms Reeves vowed.
Keir Starmer previously set out plans to hike defence spending to 2.5% – paid for by slashing billions of pounds from the overseas aid budget.
Nuclear power
The government announced over £14billion worth of investment will go towards building the Sizewell C nuclear power plant on the Suffolk coast. The Treasury said the move – championed by Keir Starmer earlier this week – will help create 10,000 jobs and hundreds of apprenticeships. The Chancellor said today it will also power six million homes.
No new nuclear power plant has opened in the UK for three decades with all the existing stations – except Sizewell B – likely to be phased out in the early 2030s.
Asylum seeker hotels
The Government will end the “costly” use of hotels to house asylum seekers in this Parliament, Rachel Reeves told the Commons.
READ MORE: Rachel Reeves reveals hotels WON’T be used to house asylum seekers
The Chancellor said: “The party opposite left behind a broken system: billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money spent on housing asylum seekers in hotels, leaving people in limbo and shunting the cost of failure onto local communities. We won’t let that stand.”
Ms Reeves said cutting the asylum backlog, hearing more appeal cases, and returning people who have no right to be in the UK will save the taxpayer £1 billion per year.
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