Minister says welfare budget ‘unsustainable’ amid reports Reeves has earmarked billions in cuts – UK politics live

Justice secretary said there is a ‘moral case’ for getting people into work when asked about the chancellor’s reported plansGood morning. Three weeks today Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will present her spring statement. Originally this was not meant to involve budget-scale changes for plans to tax or spending (Reeves says she is only going to have one proper budget a year, in the autumn, to ensure stability), but changes to the country’s economic situation mean this statement is going to be more consequential than originally intended and this morning the BBC is running a story that looks like classic Treasury pitch rolling. The markets don’t like surprises and, while exact details of budget announcements are kept secret until the chancellor speaks to MPs, the Treasury invests a lot of effort in ensuring that people have a rough idea of what’s coming.According to a report by the BBC’s economics editor Faisal Islam, Reeves is going to announce cuts, worth several billions pounds, particularly affecting welfare. He says:The Treasury will put the proposed cuts to the government’s official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), on Wednesday amid expectations the chancellor’s financial buffer has been wiped out.Sources said “the world has changed” since Rachel Reeves’s Budget last October, when the OBR indicated she had £9.9bn available to spend against her self-imposed borrowing rules.Clearly the world has changed a lot since the autumn Budget. People are watching that change happen before their eyes.The Office for Budget Responsibility will reflect that changing world in its forecasts later this month and a changing world will be a core feature of the chancellor’s response later this month.This is the Labour party. The clue is in the name. We believe in work. We know that there are many people who are currently receiving state support for being out of work who want to be in work. We know that we have too many of our young people currently out of work, not in education, employment or training.It is right that a Labour government strains every sinew to make sure that the support is available to prevent people from leaving the labour market or, if they have left the labour market, to help them get back.We’ve seen a huge rise in that welfare budget. We know that there are millions of people who are out of work in our country who want to be in work. It is absolutely morally the right thing to do to support people, to make sure either they don’t leave the labour market, or if they have, they’re supported to get back into it. Continue reading…



Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/mar/05/rachel-reeves-welfare-budget-spring-statement-pmqs-labour-keir-starmer-kemi-badenoch-news-uk-politics-live

Author : Andrew Sparrow

Publish date : 2025-03-05 09:23:00

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