Early evening summary
Rachel Reeves has pledged to “renew Britain” with a spending review prioritising health, defence and more than £100bn for long-term capital projects, despite leaving some key areas facing a tough squeeze on funding. Here is Peter Walker’s summary of the key points in the statement.
Here is Jessica Elgot’s assessment of the winners and losers in cabinet.
Here is Heather Stewart’s analysis.
And here is an excerpt from Heather’’s article.
Wednesday’s statement … included significant investment in what Reeves called Labour choices: in particular, rekindling regional economies outside London and the south-east.
Not coincidentally, these include areas that could prove vulnerable to Reform UK. Her plans would “make working people in all parts of our country better off”, she claimed.
She hailed defence investment as a way of creating jobs and growth “in Aldermaston and Lincoln, in Portsmouth and Filton, on the Clyde and in Rosyth”.
There is a rationale behind this capital-heavy approach. Economists broadly agree that a key cause of the UK’s catastrophically weak productivity – the specialist subject of Reeves’s chief economic adviser, John Van Reenen - is low investment.
The US government has condemned the decision by the UK and four other countries to sanction two far-right Israeli ministers. (See 9.46am.)
For a full list of all the items covered here today, scroll through the key events timeline at the top of the blog.
Updated
This is from Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation thinktank.
As we crunch the numbers, it is basically clear that the winners are health and defence (and not much else). Of the real growth in spending over the next three years 90% of the increase in day to day spending goes to health; and for capital spending almost 4/5ths goes on defence.
