‘Good chance’ Reeves will have to raise taxes in autumn budget, thinktank says – as it happened

Rachel Reeves after Wednesday’s spring statement. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

5.15pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Pensioners and wealthy people could be the target of tax increases at Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget if the drastically worsening economic backdrop fails to improve, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said. But, at a press conference in Paris, Keir Starmer played down the prospect of the government chosing tax rises. (See 2.51pm.)

• Lower-income households are on track to become £500 a year poorer by the end of the decade as a result of the UK chancellor’s spring statement, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation thinktank. See 9.42am for an explanation as to why Reeves is quoting figures that seem to say the opposite.

• The number of children living in poverty in the UK has reached the highest level for more than 20 years, government figures have revealed. But in Scotland child poverty rates are falling, and are now 9 points below the UK-wide figure. (See 3.29pm.)

• Starmer has described President Trump’s decision to slap a 25% import tax on cars as “very concerning” but said the UK will not be “jumping into a trade war” with the US. (See 2.31pm.)

• Starmer has said Vladimir Putin must be given a deadline to make progress on a Ukraine ceasefire.

• British Steel plans to close its two blast furnaces and steelmaking operations in Scunthorpe, putting up to 2,700 jobs at risk in a move unions called “devastating”.

• Supporters of the climate group Just Stop Oil have announced that, after three years of disruptive protests, they are ending their campaign of civil resistance.

• Reeves has said she will not accept free concert tickets again after she was criticised for taking a family member to see Sabrina Carpenter without paying.

• The UK’s carbon emissions fell by 4% last year, according to official figures.

Updated at 5.18pm GMT

4.59pm GMT

The Labour MP Stella Creasy has said she cannot support the government’s plans to cut sickness and disability benefits. In an interview with LBC’s Andrew Marr for his 6pm show tonight, asked if she could defend the cuts, she replied:

No, I cannot. because I don’t recognise the challenge that the Chancellor paints of the economic situation that we’re in …

But because I am concerned at not just what we’ve seen today, that these proposals come when we’ve already got 4.5m families living in poverty [see 10.52am], and it will add to that poverty, that they may be counterproductive to getting the economy moving.

So, the argument that many people like me make, who want this government to succeed and who recognise the challenges they’re facing, is there maybe alternative ways forward that can both address that economic uncertainty and promote social justice.

Asked if she would vote against the plans, Creasy replied:

As it stands, I can’t support these proposals. Increasing poverty is not what any of us came into politics to do, including the government. And I think they’re economically counterproductive.