Rachel Reeves defends benefit cuts and denies further tax rises likely in autumn – UK politics live | Politics
Key events
Robinson ended with a broad-brush question.
You came into the job promising change – one word on the Labour manifesto. Was it our mistake not to understand that change under Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, meant cuts for benefits for the poorest, cuts to pensioners’ winter fuel allowance, cuts to overseas aid, a squeeze on public spending, a huge new tax rise on jobs, large scale redundancies amongst public officials, and big increases in the council tax. Is that what change meant.
And Reeves replied with a broad-brush answer defending her record.
NHS waiting lists down for five months, rolling out free breakfast clubs in primary schools, the national living wage going up by £1,400 pounds from next week, 2.5% of GDP spent on defence, including £2.2bn pounds invested next year, record housebuilding, the highest level of housebuilding for 40 years. That’s the change that we promised, that’s the change that we are delivering.
Q: What are you going to do about the US car tariffs?
Reeves says there are negotiatons with the US under way.
Q: You have a tiny amount of headroom. So you might be back for more tax rises or spending cuts.
Reeves says there are always risks.
But she says her policies will promote growth.
She repeats the point she made in her statement yesterday about the OBR saying families will be £500 a year better off by the end of this parliament.
Q: The Resolution Foundation says lower income families will be £500 a year worse off.
Reeves says the OBR had plenty of time to consider the plans properly, implying its verdict is more reliable.
Reeves says Darren Jones was 'clumsy' in pocket money comment about benefit cuts
Q: Was Darren Jones right to say disability benefits were like pocket money?
Reeves says Jones was “clumsy in his analogy” and he was right to apologise.
Q: Why does a Labour government think 370,000 disabled people should lose £4,500 per year?
Reeves says she wants to ensure sick and disabled peopel can work if they want. There are thousands of people who have been written off. The last Labour government, through the New Deal, got people into work. She wants people to be better off, she says.
Robinson plays a clip from someone with a brain injury who will be £900 a month worth on, and who says he might be made homeless as a result.
Q: What would you say to him?
Reeves says the man will stay on his benefits until he is reassessed. And then he will see a trained assessors. The people with the most severe injuries will keep their benefits, and may be paid more.
But she says the government is also putting in targeted support to get people into work.
Q: But you are cutting benefits for the disabled overall. Hundreds of thousands of peopel will lose out. The OBR says this is the biggest cut to carer’s allowance for decades. Why are people losing that?
Reeves says in the budget last year she increased carer’s allowance.
She says all the evidence shows that, with support, more people can get into work.
And even with these measures the welfare bill will continue to rise, she says.
Q: You did not mention Trump by name, but he is the reason the world has changed. But do you accept you had an impact too – your budget decisions were bad for business confidence?
Reeves says the OBR said three-quarters of the reduction in the headroom was due to global borrowing costs rising.
Q: Are you saying the £25bn tax rises in the budget had no impact?
Reeves says tax changes have consequences.
But if she had not filled the black hole in the public finances, they would not have been on a firm footing. The Bank of England would not have cut interest rates. And the UK would not have attracted as much investment.
And the NHS would not be cutting waitings lists as it is now.
Reeves interviewed on Today programme
Nick Robinson is interviewing Rachel Reeves on the Today programme now.
Q: You promised just one budget a year, but yesterday you had to announce drastic cuts. What’s gone wrong?
Reeves says she does not think anyone would claim the welfare system is working well. Those plans are about reforming the system.
But the world has also changed since the autumn, she says. That eroded her fiscal headroom. She says she will never take risks with the public finances.
Reeves says UK not planning retaliatory tariffs against US 'at the moment'
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has said the UK is not planning “at the moment” to introduce retaliatory tariffs on the US, after Donald Trump imposed a new trade tax on car imports.
Speaking on Sky News, she said:
We’re not at the moment at a position where we want to do anything to escalate these trade wars.
Trade wars are no good for anyone. It will end up with higher prices for consumers, pushing up inflation after we’ve worked so hard to get a grip of inflation, and at the same time will make it harder for British companies to export.
We are looking to secure a better trading relationship with the United States. I recognise that the week ahead is important. There are further talks going on today, so let’s see where we get to in the next few days.
Graeme Wearden is covering all the reaction to Trump’s car tariffs announcement on his business live blog.
Reeves says she does not accept tax rises in autumn inevitable as she defends spring statement
Good morning. Day two after a budget-type event is when the most insightful analysis tends to come out, and this morning the two heavyweight public spending thinktanks, the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, are delivering their considered verdicts. And Rachel Reeves is doing interviews now defending her decisions.
Here is our overnight splash about the spring statement.
Many commentators have said further tax rises are likely in the autumn. But Reeves is refusing to accept this.
In an interview with Times Radio, Kate McCann put it to Reeves:
You’re going to have to come back for more. You’re going to have to come back for more cuts or tax rises in the autumn. That’s the truth, isn’t it?
And Reeves replied: “No, it’s not.”
Asked if she was ruling out tax rises, Reeves would not go that far, but she explained why she thought they would not be necessary.
What I’m saying is that there are loads of things that this government are doing that are contributing to growth. And the Office of Budget Responsibility said yesterday that the planning reforms, the national policy planning framework, which enables us to build, for example, on grey belt land, enables building to happen more quickly, will add £6.8bn to the size of our economy by the end of this parliament. And we’ll add £3.4bn to our public finances.
That shows if we go further and faster on delivering economic growth with our planning reforms, with our pensions reforms, with our regulatory reforms, we can both grow the economy and have more money for our public services. And that is what I’m focused on.
Reeves is about to be interviewed on the Today programme.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer arrives in Paris for talks with other leaders about Ukraine.
9am: Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, speaks at a Resolution Foundation event about the spring statement.
9.30am: The Department for Work and Pensions releases annual poverty figures.
10.30am: Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and his colleagues speak at an IFS briefing on the spring statement.
11am: Jonathan Reynolds, business secretary, speaks at a Chatham House conference on trade.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Around 12.30pm (UK time): Starmer holds a press conference in Paris.
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