Rachel Reeves MP: speeches

Speeches

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend speaks powerfully on behalf of her constituents, ensuring that the people of West Bromwich get a good deal from their public services and value for money when they pay their taxes. There was too much waste under the previous Government. That was exemplified during the pandemic, when so many contracts went to friends and donors. We have appointed a covid corruption commissioner because we want that money back in our public services, not in the hands of Tory friends and donors.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  What a great pitch! I am sure that one of the Ministers from the Ministry of Defence will be pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss those opportunities. As we move to 2.5% of GDP spent on defence and 3% in the next Parliament, I am determined that that money benefits our troops in the UK but also supports us becoming a defence industrial superpower. I am sure that we can work with the hon. Gentleman to realise those ambitions for Huntingdon.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend speaks powerfully on behalf of his constituents in Gateshead, who rely on the infrastructure that our country needs, be it energy, digital or transport infrastructure, or the houses that all our constituents need. In the Budget last year I put £100 billion extra into capital spending during the course of this Parliament, and I have been able to announce an additional £13 billion today. Unlike the Conservative party, I am not willing to cut capital investment, because it is absolutely crucial to grow the economy and leverage the private sector investment that we need.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  The Budget in autumn last year wiped the slate clean after 14 years of economic mismanagement by the Conservative party. We will not have to repeat a Budget like that because we are not going to inherit anything like that ever again. We have changed the rules so that the OBR always gets information now, rather than the information being hidden as it was by the previous Government.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  As I have set out, the Office for Budget Responsibility does not assume in its numbers any changes in people going back to work. That is what we are going to work on, between the OBR, the DWP and the Treasury, over the summer, so that we develop those plans to ensure that people are not worse off but better off because they can progress into jobs that suit their abilities and needs. We want more people to have the fulfilment of a good job, with security, that pays a decent wage.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  The transformation fund, worth £3.25 billion, is about trying to reduce further the costs of failure. We are putting more money into recruiting foster carers, because we want to ensure that more children get the best possible start in life. We also know that children ending up in poor-quality children’s homes has consequences not just at the start of their life but later on. We are also putting more money into technology in the Probation Service so that probation works better to rehabilitate offenders and ensure that people pay for the crimes that they commit.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  We have a very basic principle that people who deserve to be protected should be, that those who can work should and that we need a system that is sustainable. We do not have any of those three things today. That is why we are reforming our welfare system to give additional support for those with the highest needs, to give personalised, targeted and guaranteed support to help people back into work and to ensure that we have a system that is sustainable so that it is there for generations to come.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  Unlike the SNP, Labour supports investment and jobs in the defence sector in Scotland, which, in turn, supports people in Glasgow South West and across Scotland. There will be more good jobs for young people—more jobs paying decent wages— that will keep our country safe. That is what this party believes in. It is a shame that the SNP believes in something entirely different.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  There is nothing progressive, nothing Labour, about not supporting people who are disabled or sick or who are young to do jobs that are commensurate with what they are able to do. One in eight young people has been effectively written off by the Conservative party, and we are not willing to leave them in that position. We are consulting in the Green Paper on an additional premium to pay to the most sick and disabled people, because we recognise that they need support from the state, but too many people are not given the opportunities to fulfil their potential, and we are not willing to carry on like that. In the Budget last year, we got rid of the non-dom tax status, increased capital gains tax, introduced VAT on private schools and changed the rules on inheritance tax, so I do not recognise what my hon. Friend says.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  The OBR forecast that GDP per capita will increase by 5.6% during this Parliament, having fallen under the previous Government. If the hon. Gentleman ever gets to Clacton, he can tell his constituents that.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that question. He speaks powerfully about something that he knows a huge amount about. Let me answer three parts of that question. First, the OBR has revised up our productivity in its forecast. Secondly, we have a massive problem with young people not in education, employment or training—it involves one in eight young people. However, as I said in answer to a previous question, the OBR has not taken into account the impact of our back to work programme. It will work on that over the summer with the DWP and the Treasury, because we want to make sure that we design that in a way that gets as many young people back into work, contributing to the economy and contributing to our society. We were able to announce, just a couple of weeks ago in National Apprenticeship Week, an expansion of the apprenticeship programme, particularly through foundation apprenticeships and by relaxing some of the maths and English requirements. If we want to build the homes that our country needs, we need to get people into construction jobs and not say, “I’m sorry, you didn’t get a grade C in maths and English, so you’re not welcome on the construction site.” That makes no sense at all, which is why we are reforming how apprenticeship works, to get more people with the skills they need so that they can contribute to their families and the economy. We want those numbers going up.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I share the deep concern felt by everyone on the Government Benches—in fact, everyone in this Chamber—about the most sick and disabled, who need support. That is why we have set out in the Green Paper that we are consulting on an additional premium payment to the most severely disabled. It is also why, instead of writing people off and not providing the support that they need to do a job that matches their abilities and needs, we are providing that personalised, targeted support. I was at a jobcentre last week in Pudsey, in my constituency, where I heard amazing stories of work coaches helping people into work who are far from the labour market. We want to see more of that. We want to lift people out of poverty and help them to achieve their potential.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  To ensure that people are better off, we need to control inflation, which is why stability is so important; bring interest rates down, and the Bank of England has had the confidence to cut interest rates three times since the election; and boost wages, which we are beginning to see, with real wages growing at twice the rate of inflation. That benefits my hon. Friend’s constituents and people up and down the country. That is why we welcome the fact that, today, the OBR has revised up real household disposable income per person by £500.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  At the Budget, we set out £40 billion-worth of tax increases; we got rid of the non-dom tax status, increased capital gains tax, put VAT on private schools and tightened the rules around inheritance tax. We made those decisions so that we could invest more in our public services, including in our schools and our hospitals. Indeed, we have now committed to lifting defence spending within the next two years to 2.5% of GDP. On welfare spending, there is nothing progressive about writing off a generation of young people, so our targeted, personalised support will help people get back into work, lift them out of poverty, and help them to contribute both to their family finances and to our nation’s finances.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  The plans that we inherited from the previous Government saw the OECD forecast that the UK would have the slowest growth in the G7 this year. It is now forecasting us to have the second-highest growth. That is the difference that this Labour Government are making, moving us up the league tables.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  One thing that is scored in the OBR document today is the gambling levy that the Government have introduced. That money will be used to ensure that we regulate gambling properly in our country, and rightly so.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for all his work to back growth and improve living standards for working people. I was pleased to announce in the spring statement £13 billion extra for capital spending during the course of this Parliament. We know that the previous Government always made the easy choice to cut capital spending, and the deterioration of infrastructure is why we are in the mess that we are today. We will not make those short-term decisions; we will invest to grow our economy, working with business to do so.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  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.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I was pleased to be able to announce in the Budget last year a 6.7% increase in the national living wage, as well as a record increase in the youth rate of the minimum wage. That will help lift working people—working families—out of poverty. That comes alongside our Employment Rights Bill, which will ensure greater security for those who go out to work.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  At the general election, we set out our plan for a steel fund as part of the National Wealth Fund. I understand the concern of hon. Members across the House about the future of the steel industry in this country. We were able to improve the deal for Tata, to protect more jobs in south Wales. We want a thriving steel sector right across the UK, and we will continue to work with the company and the trade unions to achieve just that.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend represents the constituency that neighbours mine. He knows as I do that there are far too many people in both our constituencies in Leeds and Bradford who are written off. There are people who are not working who are quite capable of working if they are given support. People may be disabled, but it does not mean that they cannot work and contribute if they are given the proper support. That is what the Conservative party failed to do, and that is what our Government are determined to deliver. We will work with disabled groups and jobcentres, including the one in Pudsey, where I was last week, to make sure that we support people to fulfil their potential and do not just write them off like the Conservatives did.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I very much agree with the right hon. Gentleman. This is why I met my fellow European Finance Ministers in Cape Town at the G20 last week. All of Europe needs to step up. The British Government are doing so and we need to see that from other countries, too.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his words about this Government stepping up the funding for defence. Last week, we expanded sanctions on Russia, including by looking at financial services. This week, we have signed off a UK Export Finance package to provide more military support, above and beyond our defence spending and as well as the loan repaid using the profit on those assets. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we would look at going further but, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is incredibly complicated to do that in line with international law. However, we keep all options on the table, because, as he is absolutely right to say, Russia should pay for the damage that Russia has caused.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is absolutely right that we increased and stepped up the sanctions last week. Also, under the loan agreement we made with Ukraine last week, the loan will be repaid with the profits on foreign sovereign Russian assets. Russia should pay for the damage it has done.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.