Spending evaluate 2025 – reside: Rachel Reeves to unveil plans for £600bn price range | EUROtoday

The Independent’s Politics Correspondent Mille Cooke stories:

Rachel Reeves is beneath stress to impose wealth taxes forward of the spending evaluate, with campaigners accusing her of “betting the house on cash for infrastructure” while unveiling “another round of austerity for key services we all rely on”.

Aleema Shivji, interim government director at Tax Justice UK warned the anticipated cuts to public providers “would spell implausible consequences for areas like local social care, access to justice and social security”.

She added: “It’s great the government is stumping up the money for transport and house building – but by taxing the obscene levels of wealth of the super-rich more, it could also raise tens of billions to invest in revitalising other public services at the same time, in turn strengthening the economy.”

The government is facing a jam-packed agenda in the next two hours.

At midday, Sir Keir Starmer will face his weekly questions in the Commons.

Immediately after – at around 12:30pm – Rachel Reeves will deliver the government’s spending review.

This will be followed by questions from the oppositionwhich will see Shadow chancellor Mel Stride question Reeves on the review.

The government’s highly-anticipated spending review is set to be unveiled in just over an hour.

One of the areas getting a boost is housing, as £39 billion is allocated over the next 10 years to build affordable and social housing.

Sir Keir Starmer has said the move will help “make the dream of homeownership a reality”.

He wrote on X: “We are fixing the housing crisis with the biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation – to build the 1.5 million new homes this country needs.”

The Conservatives have launched a satirical attack on the chancellor ahead of her spending review announcement.

Posting a parody of a Jaws film poster to X, the party wrote: “Rachel Reeves is hungry for cash…and she’s looking for it in your pocket.”

Analysis by Kate Devlin, Whitehall Editor

What’s the difference? This is not a day filled with consumer policies.

The price of pints and cigarettes won’t go up or down depending on what Ms Reeves says.

But it is potentially more seismic than a yearly budget.

What the chancellor will do is set out the budgets for government departments for the next three years.

This will define – with potential tweaks along the way – how much the UK will spend on the NHS, defence, building more houses etc.

All of which in turn has knock-on effects for economic prosperity and quality of life.

It might not lead to punters handing over more money in the pub tonight.

But the Spending Review will impact how much cash they have in their pockets for years to come.

Financial experts have warned that Rachel Reeves could be forced to raise taxes as a result of today’s spending review.

The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggested that the chancellor has left very little room for error in her forecasts.

“The risk is certainly that when we get to the next Budget this coming autumn, if the economic forecasts move at all in the wrong direction then we may have to have some more tax increases,” Paul Johnson told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“It is important to be clear about this spending review, it is not announcing any new money. The Chancellor is sticking to the spending plans, at least we assume she is, she set out back in October and what she is doing is allocating that money.

“The risk in terms of further tax rises is if anything at all goes wrong with any of the current forecasts then they will come again in the autumn.”

Wes Streeting has promised today’s spending review will get the NHS “back on its feet”.

The health minister, who has just attended a Downing Street meeting to sign off on the plans, said they will help “build an NHS fit for the future”.

Under the review, the NHS has been given a £30 billion increase in funding – a rise of around 2.8 per cent in real terms.

Government ministers have been pictured leaving Downing Street ahead of today’s spending review.

Sir Keir Starmers cabinet gathered on Wednesday morning to sign off on the chancellor’s review.

Some ministers began to arrive at just before 9am, and were seen leaving at just after 10am.