Closing summary
Lindsay Hoyle earlier accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of acting with “supreme discourtesy” towards MPs given her “premature disclosure” of budget details. In an angry rebuke delivered in parliament he said it was “totally unacceptable to go around the world telling everybody” about “major” new policy announcements rather than giving the information first to MPs.
The bus fare cap in England will be extended for a further year, but rise from £2 to £3, Keir Starmer has said. The Liberal Democrats have described it as a “bus tax”, and Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick called the move “clueless”. The prime minister said the previous administration had only funded the policy up to the end of this year. Green co-leader Carla Denyer described the change as “the wrong approach”.
Starmer has promised “better days ahead” and said the era of Tory neglect and “making working people pay the price” for their policies was over. Warning “there are no shortcuts” after 14 years of Tory-led government, he said “The time is long overdue for politicians in this country to level with you honestly about the trade-offs this country faces”.
The use of the word “genocide” in relation to the war in Gaza risks undermining genocides such as the Holocaust, David Lammy has said. The foreign secretary was replying to a question by Conservative MP Nick Timothy, who asked whether the description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as “annihilation, extermination and genocide” was inappropriate.
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer welcomed Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati to Downing Street for a bilateral meeting. The pair shook hands outside Number 10, where they are expected to discuss the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The prime minister offered Mikati his “condolences for the very many losses in your country”.
Labour figures today have been repeatedly questioned by the media about the definition of “working person”. The prime minister said “I’m concerned with what’s in their payslip, and making sure that there is no more tax in their payslip”. Cabinet minister Pat McFadden said the budget would be the “most honest” in years.
McFadden also issued a strong rebuke to shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s criticism of the Office for Budget Responsibility plans to publish a report about the country’s fiscal situation, saying the Tories “don’t want to hear the truth” about the financial situation they left for the new government.
Foreign secretary David Lammy robustly defended his position and the topics he had raised with the Chinese in recent discussion during an urgent question in the Commons, where he was repeatedly criticised for not being strong enough. Lammy said it was “crass” to suggest in three months he could have brough about different outcomes to the previous government’s 14 years of diplomacy.
Kemi Badenoch said the Tory leadership election was “existential” for the party. She nevertheless claimed the party could return to power after one term of a Labour government.
Russell Findlay, the new Scottish Conservative leader, has proposed cutting free prescriptions, merging local authorities and abolishing quangos to deliver cuts in Scottish income tax rates.
The adult prison population in England and Wales has dropped 3% after reaching record levels.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Conservative shadow Treasury minister Gareth Davies has urged the government to say how much Labour plans to borrow in this Wednesday’s budget.
Across the dispatch box from chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones, Davies pressed the government on what advice Treasury officials had given to ministers about the impact of Labour’s spending plans on interest rates.
He also asked: “This Labour government are quick to spend but unwilling to explain, so can I ask the chief secretary finally, on behalf of the British people and the markets who are watching this statement so very nervously, what definition of public debt is the UK offering to lenders today and how much does the government plan to borrow under an expanded definition?”
Jones said in his reply: “He has some brass neck standing up in this House telling this government how to behave after the years of his party’s maladministration over the last 14 years.”
The minister had earlier set out changes to fiscal rules, known as the “stability rule, that we will pay for all day-to-day spending on public services from receipts” and the “investment rule, which will get debt falling as a proportion of our economy”.
He said: “After years of chaos from the Conservative party, chaos that cost families, businesses and public services dear, the British people are now rightly looking to this new Labour government to clear up the mess from the last government, to fix the foundations and to rebuild Britain.”
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer welcomed Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati to Downing Street for a bilateral meeting.
The pair shook hands outside Number 10, where they are expected to discuss the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The prime minister offered Mikati his “condolences for the very many losses in your country”.
Referring to the “long, shared and good history” between the UK and Lebanon, Starmer said it was important to discuss how to bring about a “cessation of hostilities” and “ensure that the UN resolution is not just words”.
Mikati thanked Starmer for calling for a ceasefire in the region and for Britain’s support on humanitarian matters.
The foreign secretary has said that if Israel severs its ties with the United Nations agency dedicated to humanitarian aid in Gaza, it could be grounds for sanctions.
MPs asked David Lammy whether he would be introducing sanctions on Israeli politicians several times after he gave his statement on the Middle East on Monday afternoon.
Labour’s Patricia Ferguson asked if new laws due to be debated in the Israeli parliament this week over whether to stop all cooperation with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees could hasten sanctions.
She said: “Given the way in which the Knesset to vote on the issue on Unrwa today, will he, if that decision goes the way it seems to be going in which Israel will make it very difficult if not impossible for Unrwa to operate, with the consequence that humanitarian aid will not get into Gaza.
“Is that not the point at which we have to consider serious sanctions against those who are proponents of such action?”
Lammy said: “Yes, the truth is if Unrwa is brought to its knees, that would be a very very serious event indeed.”
SNP MP for Dundee Central Chris Law called for sanctions for Yair Golan, the Israel Democrats Party leader who during an interview in June called for Palestinians to “starve” if Hamas did not return hostages.
Lammy said: “These issues are being kept under review.”
Updated
The use of the word “genocide” in relation to the war in Gaza risks undermining genocides such as the Holocaust, David Lammy has said.
The foreign secretary was replying to a question by Conservative MP Nick Timothy, who asked whether the description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as “annihilation, extermination and genocide” was inappropriate.
Timothy said: “Today, as on other occasions recently we’ve heard comments from the benches opposite that suggest somehow Israel is conducting a war of annihilation, extermination and of genocide.
“There is obviously much suffering in Gaza, and we all accept that, but this terminology is completely inappropriate, not accurate, and is repeated by the protesters and the lawbreakers who are intimidating British Jews as we saw again this weekend. Will the foreign secretary take the opportunity to say that there is not a genocide occurring in the Middle East?”
Lammy said: “There are quite properly legal terms that must be determined by international courts.
“But I do agree with the honourable gentleman, those terms were largely used when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the second world war in the Holocaust, and the way that they are used now undermines the seriousness of that term.”
Iran “should not respond” to Israeli airstrikes over the weekend, David Lammy has urged.
The foreign secretary told the Commons on Monday:
Targeted Israeli strikes hit military sites inside Iran including a missile manufacturer and an air defence base. This was in response to Iran’s escalatory ballistic missile attacks on Israel, condemned across the House.
These attacks were the latest in a long history of malign Iranian activity. Its nuclear programme, with their total enriched uranium stockpile now reported by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to be 30 times the Jcpoa (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal) limit, and political, financial, military support for militias including Hezbollah and Hamas.
Let me be clear, the Government unequivocally condemns Iranian attacks on Israel.
Lammy warned Iran and its proxies’ goal is the “complete eradication of the Israeli state” and added: “We do not mourn the deaths of the heads of proscribed terrorist organisations. The priority now is immediate de-escalation. Iran should not respond.
“All sides must exercise restraint. We do not wish to see the cycle of violence intensified, dragging the whole region into a war with severe consequences.”
The prime minister’s official spokesperson, responding to the Commons Speaker’s criticism, told reporters “it’s entirely routine for government to make announcements in the run up to budgets and spending reviews”.
However, they added:
But obviously we will also ensure that parliament has all the requisite time to scrutinise measures clearly.
The chancellor will be in front of parliament on Wednesday and, indeed, there will be days of budget debate subsequently at which parliamentarians will be able to scrutinise budget measures.
Lindsay Hoyle earlier accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of acting with “supreme discourtesy” towards MPs given her “premature disclosure” of budget details.
In an angry rebuke delivered in parliament he said it was “totally unacceptable to go around the world telling everybody” about “major” new policy announcements rather than giving the information first to MPs.
In the announcement, Hoyle said Reeves’s interview were “major new policy announcements with significant and wide-ranging implications for the government’s fiscal policy and for the public finances.”
He said:
It is evident to me that this should therefore have been made in the first instance in this House and not to the world’s media.
This principle is clearly and unambiguously set out in paragraph 9.1 of the Ministerial Code. While this can hardly be described as a leak - the Chancellor herself gave interviews on the record and on camera - the premature disclosure of the contents of the budget has always been regarded as a supreme discourtesy to the House.
Indeed, I still regard it as such.
I am very, very disappointed that the Chancellor expects the House to wait nearly a full week to hear her repeat these announcements in the budget statement on Wednesday.
Summary of the day so far …
The bus fare cap in England will be extended for a further year, but rise from £2 to £3, Keir Starmer has said. The Liberal Democrats have described it as a “bus tax”, and Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick called the move “clueless”. The prime minister said the previous administration had only funded the policy up to the end of this year. Green co-leader Carla Denyer described the change as “the wrong approach”
Starmer has promised “better days ahead” and said the era of Tory neglect and “making working people pay the price” for their policies was over. Warning “there are no shortcuts” after 14 years of Tory-led government, he said “The time is long overdue for politicians in this country to level with you honestly about the trade-offs this country faces”
Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has angrily reprimanded the government and in particular Chancellor Rachel Reeves over details of the budget being announced in the media in advance, rather than in parliament. A statement on fiscal rules is to be made in the House of Commons later today
Labour figures today have been repeatedly questioned by the media about the definition of “working person”. The prime minister said “I’m concerned with what’s in their payslip, and making sure that there is no more tax in their payslip”. Cabinet minister Pat McFadden said the budget would be the “most honest” in years
McFadden also issued a strong rebuke to shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s criticism of the Office for Budget Responsibility plans to publish a report about the country’s fiscal situation, saying the Tories “don’t want to hear the truth” about the financial situation they left for the new government
Foreign secretary David Lammy robustly defended his position and the topics he had raised with the Chinese in recent discussion during an urgent question in the Commons, where he was repeatedly criticised for not being strong enough. Lammy said it was “crass” to suggest in three months he could have brough about different outcomes to the previous government’s 14 years of diplomacy
Kemi Badenoch said the Tory leadership election was “existential” for the party. She nevertheless claimed the party could return to power after one term of a Labour government
Russell Findlay, the new Scottish Conservative leader, has proposed cutting free prescriptions, merging local authorities and abolishing quangos to deliver cuts in Scottish income tax rates
The adult prison population in England and Wales has dropped 3% after reaching record levels
Chris Osuh, our community affairs correspondent, writes for the Guardian that a report produced by the cross-party thinktank Demos and the Co-op has found that a lack of social mobility is costing the UK £19bn a year.
Read more here: UK loses out on £19bn in annual GDP growth due to lack of social mobility
My colleague Jessica Elgot has also suggested that the speaker was misguided earlier in his vociferous criticism of Labour’s pre-budget announcements and briefing.
She writes:
Sorry but the last time when big measures were not briefed, it was such a shock to markets that it caused a run on sterling and the Bank of England had to save pension funds from collapse. Pitch-rolling is not always a bad thing. Imagine - just imagine - if Reeves had only announced her borrowing changes on the day to parliament. Not serious.
Sorry but the last time when big measures were not briefed, it was such a shock to markets that it caused a run on sterling and the BoE had to save pension funds from collapse. Pitch-rolling is not always a bad thing... https://t.co/epT2ymST4H
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) October 28, 2024
In parliament the foreign secretary has made a statement about the Middle East.
David Lammy said the government unequivocaly condemns Iranian attacks on Israel. He said he had spoken to the foreign ministers of both Iran and Israel and urged restraint from both.
On northern Gaza, he said nine in ten Gazans had been displaced in the course of the year, and said “there is no excuse for Israel’s government’s current restrictions on humanitarian aid”.
“They must let aid in now,” he said. He added that current restrictions “fly in the face” of Israel’s commitments, and said they are a rebuke to friends of Israel who have supported its right to defend itself, while also funding humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people.
He said it was “a matter of profound regret” that Israel’s parliament has debated closing down access to Gaza for Unrwa.
On Lebanon, Lammy said the government had led efforts to respond, with a swift call for a ceasefire. He said the prime minister was meeting with Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister.
Lammy said ceasefires, international law and diplomacy were the way to deescalate the situation in the region.
“It is a source of deep frustration”, Lammy said, that progess had not been made. He said the government would continue its efforts in the region “So that one day they might all live side-by-side in peace and security.”
A dissenting voice to the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, hauling the government and in particular the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, over the coals on budget details being published in the media in advance is Hugo Gye, political editor at the i, who argues the counterpoint, that “if the government genuinely refused to say anything about the budget before its delivery you would find a) even more damaging speculation doing the rounds b) a potentially quite violent market reaction on the day”.
If the government genuinely refused to say anything about the Budget before its delivery you would find a) even *more* damaging speculation doing the rounds b) a potentially quite violent market reaction on the day. https://t.co/cWQHGB4QAe
— Hugo Gye (@HugoGye) October 28, 2024
Readers with keen memories may remember the incident in 2013 when it appears that the Evening Standard in London had been briefed the whole of George Osborne’s budget, as evidenced by one journalist tweeting out the paper’s front page containing details before Osborne had spoken.
Not that many of us however, I suspect, remember directly the time in 1947 that Labour chancellor Hugh Dalton resigned after a different evening paper, the Star, published his budget before he spoke.
Updated
In parliament Iain Duncan Smith has raised an urgent question about the UK’s relations with China, and recent contact between the foreign secretary and Chinese officials.
Foreign secretary David Lammy robustly defended his position and the topics he had raised with the Chinese, and said he would take no lessons from the Conservative party, whose attitude to relations with China changed course several times, he says.
Emily Thornberry has invited Lammy to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee which she now chairs. Lammy says he would be happy to appear before the committee whenever “she commands”.
Alicia Kearns, Conservative MP and shadow minister for foreign affairs, accused Lammy of giving an account of meetings that differed greatly from that given by the Chinese.
“That was really quite bad,” Lammy replies to her question.
Speaker Hoyle criticises chancellor Rachel Reeves for early disclosure of budget details
Sir Lindsay Hoyle has said it is “evident” to him that last week chancellor Rachel Reeves made significant policy announcements about fiscal rule changes in the media, rather than in parliament.
He said he is glad there is a statement being made in the house later which he implies is “no coincidence” after he has expressed his anger.
“It is not acceptable, I don’t want it to continue”, he said of budget details being paraded in the media before Wednesday.
He said that often members are worried about getting a seat in the chamber for the budget speech, but “the way things are going” this won’t be a problem, as everything will have already been published.
He also said that the party now in government used to complain about the previous administration doing this, and are now doing the same themselves.
“Get your acts together on all sides,” he said.
Updated
My colleague Polly Toynbee has published her latest column, in which she argues that Rachel Reeves’s budget “needs to sing ‘Here comes the sun’ after too many grey months of grim prognosis.”
Kemi Badenoch has just been given a warning by the speaker in the House of Commons after raising questions about Jas Athwal, MP for Ilford South since July 2024.
After she referred to stories in the media about Athwal’s alleged activities as a landlord, Lindsay Hoyle asked Badenoch whether she had notified the MP in advance that she intended to mention him. She said she would need to check with her office whether that had happened. He admonished her, and told her to change the subject of her questions.
Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch are making their final pitches to Conservative party members in the leadership election this week.
Jenrick has posted today to say that it was time to “end the drama, end the excuses and just deliver.”
He also rather unexpectedly made a pitch for the nightclubbing vote, by posting a picture of himself in a night club in Ilford, calling for a revitalisation of the late night economy.
Great to be in Faces nightclub in Ilford on Thursday night.
— Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) October 28, 2024
Labour have acted as the fun police in London, suffocating bars and clubs with red tape.
With the right leadership, London’s nightlife can thrive like our other major cities. pic.twitter.com/NnWQH7QBeC
For her part, Badenoch appeared on BBC Radio 2 today. She denied that the position she was vying for was “a caretaker leader job”. She told listeners it was possible for the Conservatives to get back into power after one term of Labour in government, but that this leadership election was “existential” for the Tories.
Badenoch said:
What I tell everyone is that we have one chance to get this right. This is existential. I actually feel that if we’re not careful, this could be the end of the Conservative Party.
There is a Reform Party on the right that says it’s the real conservative party. We need to be more confident, more authentic in our values.
But we also need to ensure that we understand what we got wrong and explain to the public, apologise and create a better offer.
So there’s everything to play for. It can be done in one term, but it’s certainly something that will be the toughest thing we’ve ever had to do.
Angela Rayner has robustly defended the government’s plan for mandatory housing targets in the Commons today.
Asked by David Simmonds, Conservative shadow minister for housing, how confident the government was of meeting its targets given, he said, “the uncertainty created by the government’s new top down targets, which will delay the implementation of local plans and therefore planning decisions”, Rayner said:
Britain is facing the sharpest housing crisis ever because of the failure of those benches opposite. We will make sure through our mandatory housing targets and announcements that have been made, and will be made at the budget, to ensure that we get the houses that Britain needs.
The co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Carla Denyer, has described the change in the bus fare cap in England from £2 to £3 as “the wrong approach”.
She posted to social media to say:
The Labour government has confirmed a 50% rise in bus fares - a blow for everyone who relies on buses in the cost of living crisis. This is the wrong approach – government should be supporting our economy and environment by making it easier to get around without a car.
Blackburn’s independent MP, Adnan Hussain, has also criticised Labour’s plans for the bus fare cap in England.
He posted to social media to say:
Disappointing Labour plans to increase bus fares by 50%, especially for towns like Blackburn, in the north-west, where many rely on bus services to get to and from work. Pensioners’ heating allowance, two-child cap, and now bus fares. So much for helping the most vulnerable.
Hussain won the seat in July from Labour’s Kate Hollern.
The government has published a written ministerial statement from deputy prime minister Angela Rayner on social and affordable housing.
In it she says Wednesday’s budget will “set out how the government will deliver more affordable housing and ensure social housing is available for those who need it most.”
Rayner says:
This will include an immediate one year cash injection of £500m to top up the existing Affordable Homes Programme which will deliver up to 5,000 new social and affordable homes, bringing total investment in housing supply in 2025/2026 to over £5bn.
The government will also consult on a new 5-year social housing rent settlement, which caps the rents social housing providers can charge their tenants, to provide the sector with the certainty it needs to invest in new social housing. The intention would be for this to increase with CPI inflation figures and an additional 1%.
You can read the statement in full here.
The House of Commons is about to start sitting for the week, and after the traditional prayers there will be housing questions.
The House of Commons sits from 2.30pm today.
— UK House of Commons (@HouseofCommons) October 28, 2024
The #OrderPaper is published each sitting day and lists the business of the House. pic.twitter.com/jYuJrqxi9j
Lib Dems: England bus fare cap move to £3 is 'without a doubt a bus tax'
Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson Tim Farron MP has described the announcement raising the bus fare cap from £2 to £3 in England and extended the scheme for a further 12 months as “without a doubt a bus tax.”
In a statement, Farron said
While this new government has been left to make difficult choices, they cannot allow the burden of fixing the Conservatives’ mess to be on people and small businesses across the country.
The fundamental issue is that neither Labour nor the Conservatives before them seemed to understand is that for rural communities, it doesn’t matter if the cap is £2 or £3 if they don’t have a bus service in the first place.
If the government is serious about growth then it would invest in services which will boost our struggling town centres and high streets.
Jeremy Corbyn has also added his voice to criticism of the announcement, saying:
Scrapping the £2 bus fare cap is a disgraceful decision that will harm the poorest in society, and discourage public transport at a time when it is needed more than ever. Why is the government punishing people for trying to get to work?
Speaking earlier today, prime minister Keir Starmer said that the flat £2 fare cap in England had only been funded by the previous Conservative administration to the end of this year, when it was due to end, and that his government were extending the policy, but at the higher rate.
When the policy was announced, the then Conservative government claimed it would save almost a third of the ticket price for the average journey, and cut emissions and congestion by taking an estimated 2m cars off the roads.
Earlier Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick described the Labour announcement as “clueless”, and shadow transport secretary Helen Whately said “That’s £10 a week extra to get to work under Labour. Clearly bus users don’t count as ‘working people’ either.”
Russell Findlay, the new Scottish Conservative leader, has proposed cutting free prescriptions, merging local authorities and abolishing quangos to deliver cuts in Scottish income tax rates.
In his first major policy speech since winning the leadership last month, Findlay said “nothing is off the table” in a bid to cut income tax rates, which are devolved in Scotland but higher than in the rest of the UK. He would start by abolishing the 21p tax rate.
He told Tory activists and MSPs in Edinburgh:
Tens of millions of pounds are waiting to be saved if only politicians in Edinburgh were more concerned about ensuring best value for taxpayers.
This should be our mission over the years ahead: rebuild the broken bond of trust between politicians and the public by only promising what’s deliverable. Rebuild trust by being ruthlessly efficient custodians of taxpayers’ money.
He said he would reduce Scotland’s 131 quangos and agencies, which the Tories claim cost £19bn a year. He pledged to merge the largest environmental agencies, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and NatureScot, and to scrap the Scottish Land Commission, which oversees land reform policy.
He also proposed scrapping baby boxes, which include free gifts of clothing, books and thermometers given to all new mothers.
“Nothing really is off the table. Everything is up for discussion. Baby boxes might seem in the grand scheme of things like not a lot of money, but £50m could do a lot of good in our public services, and I think we should look at that.”
After appearing to suggest abolishing free tuition was under consideration, he later appeared to backtrack. He said the key issue was closing down university courses of little material value – a theme echoed by candidates in the contest to be the next UK Conservative leader.
Findlay refused to be specific on how many of Scotland’s 32 local councils or its NHS boards could be scrapped or merged; the Scottish Labour party has proposed merging Scotland’s 14 territorial NHS boards into three.
“I think we need to rationalise where we can and look at everything with a fresh eye. [At] this stage, I’m going to consult with colleagues and bring forward our proper proposals,” he told one reporter.
Findlay was elected Scottish Tory leader after his predecessor Douglas Ross resigned following a crisis over his treatment of a fellow Tory election candidate, David Duguid, his expenses claims, and an apparent breach of his promise not to stand again for Westminster.
Political correspondent Kiran Stacey has this report on today’s announcements by Keir Starmer:
The bus fare cap in England will rise from £2 to £3 at the end of this year, Keir Starmer has said, as Rachel Reeves prepares to raid transport funding in this week’s budget.
The prime minister told an audience in Birmingham that the money to fund the £2 cap would run out at the end of 2024 and that the Labour government would then not be able to keep it at the same level after that.
The decision by the prime minister and chancellor comes despite heavy lobbying by Labour’s elected mayors to keep the cap in place, as revealed last week by the Guardian. Starmer insisted on Monday that working people would welcome such decisions as a necessary part of fixing the public finances after 14 years of Conservative government.
“The Tories only funded [the £2 fare cap] until the end of 2024, and therefore that is the end of the funding in relation to the £2 bus fare,” Starmer said.
“I do know that this matters, particularly in rural buses, and that’s why I’m able to say to you this morning that in the budget, we will announce there’ll be a £3 cap on bus fares until the end of 2025, because I know how important it is. So that’ll be there in the budget on Wednesday.”
The prime minister was giving a pre-budget speech in Birmingham to set expectations ahead of what ministers warn will be a painful budget for many people, including planned rises to national insurance, capital gains tax and inheritance tax.
Read more here: England’s bus fare cap will rise from £2 to £3 in 2025, says Starmer
Updated
Another part of the dripping out of budget announcements ahead of Wednesday has been the prime minister this morning stating that local services to “get Britain working” will get a £240m funding boost.
It is part of the Labour party’s stated national mission to pull the employment rate up to 80%.
In quotes issued from the Chancellor about the funding, Rachel Reeves said “Due to years of economic neglect, the benefits bill is ballooning.”
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall is quoted as saying that “Through our Get Britain Working plan, we will ensure every young person is supported to find earnings or learning, while our new jobs and careers service will transform opportunity for all.”
Economic inactivity has risen by nearly one million people since before the pandemic in 2020, with PA Media reporting that 85% of this is due to those who are long-term sick.
If you didn’t see it, at the weekend our economics correspondent Richard Partington had a reported out piece looking at this issue in Barnsley, where for the first time since the deindustrialisation years, there are more vacancies than people looking for work.
I imagine the number of people who could put together a specific list of top five most impactful UK budgets from the last five decades is quite small, but our economics editor Larry Elliott is among them. Readers of a certain age – including me – are sure to get a certain frisson from seeing pictures of Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson, Norman Lamont and Kenneth Clarke among others. Kwasi Kwarteng also, inevitably, puts in an appearance.
The adult prison population in England and Wales has dropped 3% after reaching record levels.
Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures show there were 85,867 people in prison on Monday, which was 1,598 fewer than recorded at the beginning of last week.
PA Media reports the drop means there is capacity for 3,141 more people in the system, and that the figure for inmates is the lowest since 30 June in 2023.
Earlier, speaking in Birmingham, prime minister Keir Starmer criticised the record of the previous government, saying “Just look at the state of our prisons. Where’s the Tory apology for that? Watching the prison population rise while they were too weak either to reform sentencing or build new prison places.”
A little bit more context around the bus fares cap in England. It was introduced by the last Conservative government at the beginning of 2023 as a three month scheme, budgeted at £60m. It initially capped single bus fares at more than 130 bus operators serving more than 4,600 routes, saving almost a third of the average single ticket price. Some smaller operators declined to participate.
In September 2023 government analysis claimed that the overall price of bus fares in England, outside London, had dropped by 7.4% between June 2022 and June 2023, largely as an effect of the scheme.
Bus fares in London are capped at £1.75.
Robert Jenrick, the Conservative leadership hopeful, has described the Labour government’s decision to extend the bus fare cap in England for another year, but raise the maximum price to £3 as “clueless”, adding “Starmer must think people who get the bus aren’t working people.”
Tories: England bus fare cap extension and price rise means '£10 a week extra to get to work under Labour'
Shadow transport secretary Helen Whately, the Conservative MP for Faversham and Mid Kent, has criticised Keir Starmer’s announcement that the bus fare cap in England was set to be extended for another year, but raised from £2 to £3.
In a post to social media, Whately said:
That’s £10 a week extra to get to work under Labour. Clearly bus users don’t count as “working people” either.
In December 2022 the then-Conservative government announced that the £2 bus fare cap in England “will run until 31 December 2024.”
In his speech in Birmingham announcing the extension and price rise, the prime minister said “I do know how much this matters, particularly in rural communities where there’s heavy reliance on buses.”
Updated
Keir Starmer has posted to social media to say that “This budget will help to get Britain working. It will pave the way for reforms that tackle the root causes of economic inactivity, so those who can work, will work.”
This Budget will help to get Britain working.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) October 28, 2024
It will pave the way for reforms that tackle the root causes of economic inactivity, so those who can work, will work.
Earlier, speaking in Birmingham, the prime minister had said the UK is “the only G7 country for whom economic inactivity is still higher than it was before Covid”.
He continued:
That’s not just bad for our economy. It’s also bad for all those who are locked out of opportunity. So the Chancellor will announce £240m in funding to provide local services that can help people back into work.
The Green party of England and Wales’s co-leader Carla Denyer has responded to Keir Starmer’s speech in Birmingham by reposting some comments she made yesterday calling for more taxation on the super-rich, saying:
14 years of Tory underinvestment have left public services on their knees, our economy broken. We can’t afford five more yers of this. It feels like Labour are stuck in second gear on the motorway. They could deliver on the change they promised if they’re prepared to tax the super-rich.
14 years of Tory underinvestment have left public services on their knees, our economy broken. We can't afford 5 more yrs of this
— Carla Denyer (@carla_denyer) October 28, 2024
It feels like Labour are stuck in 2nd gear on the motorway. They could deliver on the change they promised if they're prepared to tax the super-rich https://t.co/6JgBM6b0HB
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice has also been on the airwaves today talking about Wednesday’s budget. He described Labour’s plans as a “targeted assault on wealth creation,” saying “We’re all gonna get absolutely hammered and assaulted on Wednesday.”
Starmer promises 'no shortcuts' to rebuilding country after inheriting neglect of previous government
Keir Starmer has promised “better days ahead” and said the era of Tory neglect and “making working people pay the price” for their policies was over.
In a speech in Birmingham designed to trail Rachel Reeves’ budget on Wednesday, the first from the new administration, Starmer:
announced that the bus fares cap in England would be extended for a year, but at a higher rate of £3
said the Chancellor will announce £240m in funding for services to get people back into work
said the country needed to face up to the “fiction” that you can lower taxes and increase public spending at the same time
said he could not give a “cast iron guarantee that never again in any budget will there be any adjustment to tax” because “we just don’t know what’s around the corner”
said his concern was making sure “there is no more tax in their payslip” for working people
sidestepped a question about whether a fuel duty rise would count as a tax on working people who use their cars to get to and from work
Starmer warned that working people around the world had lost faith that politics could deliver for them, but said that did not mean politicians should give up on them, warning that “populism preys on the fears that people have.”
He also accused Rishi Sunak and the previous Conservative government of calling an early election to avoid facing the fiscal situation that his Labour party have inherited.
Warning “there are no shortcuts”, Starmer said:
The time is long overdue for politicians in this country to level with you honestly about the trade-offs this country faces
Working people know that hard choices are necessary. They lived through the Liz Truss episode. They lived through the cost-of-living crisis.
So they know that the things they want from us – protecting their living standards, building our nation, fixing our public services – they know that this can only be achieved alongside economic stability.
Updated
Keir Starmer somewhat sidestepped a question on whether a rise in fuel duty would count as a rise in taxes on working people, and whether the government planned such a rise.
During a question and answer session with the media in Birmingham, Jack Ellison from the Sun had asked “Every day millions of people across the country will get in their cars and go to work. So would any hike to fuel duty on Wednesday be a direct hit on the working people that you claim the champion?”
In response the prime minister said:
Well, I know this is a particular concern to your readers, and I’m not going to preempt what happens on Wednesday, but obviously this is an issue that comes up at every budget, and you’ll see how we deal with it at this budget.
But I do understand how important it is. I understand what you’re putting to me, and I know how important it is to you, your readers and others.
Keir Starmer has drawn a round of applause from the audience in Birmingham after a rather brusque response to a question from a journalist from the Daily Mail.
Asked whether Starmer thought his government was at odds with the priorities of the public after Kumail Jaffer cited “new polling this morning suggests that the majority of voters would prefer Wednesday’s priority to be lower taxes ahead of investment in public services,” Starmer initially simply said “No.”
He then elaborated:
I think for too long we pretended that you could lower your tax and spend more on your public services. It is about time we faced up to that fiction.
A couple of questions during this session from Sky News and the Times have attempted to get the prime minister to commit to no further tax rises during the course of the five year parliament. Keir Starmer has refused to allow himself to become a hostage to fortune here, saying:
We are fixing the foundations in this budget. So that is the purpose of this budget, to take the difficult decisions.
Now nobody wants tax rises, least of all me, so we will do the hard work in this budget to allow us then to rebuild the country.
I can’t give you a cast iron guarantee that never again in any budget will there be any adjustment to tax, because we just don’t know what’s around the corner. We’ve lived through, in the last five or six years, Ukraine, Covid, et cetera.
But I can tell you that as we stand here now going into this budget, it’s our intention to take the tough decisions here and now up front, in the hope that we can then build and rebuild the country on that stable foundation.
Starmer announces England's bus fare cap will be extended but rise to £3 in 2025
Keir Starmer has announced that Labour will raise the £2 bus fare cap in England to £3 next week.
Asked about rumours around changes to the cap in Wednesday’s budget, the prime minister said:
On the £2 bus fare, the first thing to say is the Tories had only funded that til the end of 2024 and therefore that is the end of the funding in relation to the £2 capped fair.
I do know how much this matters, particularly in rural communities where there’s heavy reliance on busses, and that’s why I’m able to say to you this morning that in the budget, we will announce there will be a £3 cap on bus fares to the end of 2025, because I know how important it is. So that will be there in the budget on Wednesday.
Sam Coates from Sky News asked the prime minister if he was “absolutely sure” that the government were “front-loading” tax rises, and could he rule out further tax rises in future budgets.
Keir Starmer said “I fundamentally believe that we need to run towards the tough decisions. I fundamentally believe we have to fix the foundations so we can build a better future, and that’s tough. That’s difficult.”
The first two questions have been from the BBC and ITV and have focussed on the semantics of whether Keir Starmer’s Labour manifesto was “honest” about taxes on working people.
The prime minister said in reply to one of the questions:
Let me be clear. As far as working people, I’m concerned with what’s in their payslip, and making sure that there is no more tax in their payslip. And that matters to people, because we made that promise to them.
But honesty is really important, because we’re facing really difficult decisions, and I’m not prepared to continue with the fiction that we’ve had previously over the last 14 years. Where there are problems, we’ll identify them and we will fix them.
As a reminder, this is the paragraph from the Labour manifesto which has sparked these accusations:
The Conservatives have raised the tax burden to a 70-year high. We will ensure taxes on working people are kept as low as possible. Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of income Tax, or VAT.
Keir Starmer has said that this week’s Labour budget will “light the way” ahead for the new government.
He said “We have five years and a big mandate so working people will not accept any excuses,” adding that the government “will publish clear ambitions for this parliament” that they can be measured about.
He continued:
These are my priorities for change, and I won’t change course. The budget will light the way, and we will use the power of government for stability, investment and reform with partnerships across the whole of society, galvanised by clear objectives, to deliver on the priorities of the British people. Foundations fixed, public services renewed, a country rebuilt.
Starmer is now taking questions from the media.
Keir Starmer says that working people across the world have lost faith that politics can deliver for them.
Describing it as a paradox, the prime minister said:
All around the world, traditional values, democratic values, values that have underpinned the way countries like ours have operated for years, the pragmatism that is part of our identity, is under attack.
Why? Because people – working people most of all – have lost faith it can still deliver for their family,
And yet, at the same time, what people want from politics hasn’t changed.
People want a stable economy. They want their country to be safe, their borders secure, economic security, national security, border security.
Beyond that, they want exactly what those [Labour] national missions promise, a growing economy, safer streets, clean British energy in their home, opportunities for their children and an NHS that is there when they need it.
I know populism preys on the fears that people have that these things no longer belong to them.
But I’ve never felt that the right response is to ignore those concerns, rather than showing that they can still be delivered.
In Birmingham Keir Starmer has delivered his previously trialled line, that his government will ignore the “populist chorus of easy answers” in this week’s budget.
The prime minister said:
Politics is a choice, and it’s time to choose a clear path. It’s time to embrace the harsh light of fiscal reality so we can come together behind a credible long term plan.
It’s time we ran towards the tough decisions, because ignoring them set us on this path of decline.
It’s time we ignored the populist chorus of easy answers, because we saw what happened if you reject the constraints of the economic stability, and we’re never going back to that.
That is our choice. Stability to prevent chaos. Borrowing that will drive long term growth. Tax rises to prevent austerity and rebuild public services. We choose to protect working people. We choose to get the NHS back on its feet. We choose to fix the foundations, reject decline and rebuild our country with investment.
Starmer then issued a challenge to the opposition, citing the disastrous short-lived premiership of Liz Truss, saying:
I can’t get into the individual measures before Wednesday but I will say this. If people want to criticise the path we choose, that’s their prerogative, but let them spell out a different direction.
If they think the state has grown too big, let them tell working people which public services they would cut.
If they think tax rises are unfair, let them tell working people which taxes they would raise instead.
If they don’t see our long term investment in infrastructure as necessary, let them explain to working people how they would grow the economy for them.
And if they think the taxes are too high, but they don’t want to cut public spending, let them tell working people why the lessons of Liz Truss no longer apply.
Because I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the time is long overdue for politicians in this country to level with you honestly about the trade offs this country faces. To stop insulting your intelligence with the chicanery of easy answers.
Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak and the previous Conservative government of calling an early election to avoid facing the fiscal situation that his Labour party have inherited.
Speaking in Birmingham, the prime minister said:
Just look at the state of our prisons. Where’s the Tory apology for that? Watching the prison population rise while they were too weak either to reform sentencing or build new prison places.
Too scared to conduct a proper spending review, as we’ve done, because of the damage they knew it would uncover.
They knew. That’s why they ran away from that exercise and called an early election instead.
They knew our public services were broken. They knew there was a black hole in the public finances. £22bn of unfunded spending this year. Wasting reserves three times over on Rwanda, asylum hotels, propping up a failing train companies, and that’s before we even get the long term challenges ignored for 14 years.
Starmer: era of Tories making 'working people pay the price' is over
Keir Starmer has said the era of the Conservatives “destroying economic foundations” and making “working people pay the price” is over.
Speaking in Birmingham two days ahead of the first budget from the new government, Starmer said:
It will be a budget which will show to the British people that we won’t be distracted from our task. That we will stick to our long term plan. Run towards the tough decisions, rip off the short term sticky plasters. So we can lead our country, finally, but decisively out of this, pay more, get less, doomed, low growth Tory trap that for 14 years, decimated public services, destroyed our economic foundations and made working people pay the price.
And mark my words, that era is now over.
We are turning the page on Tory decline, closing the book on their austerity and chaos. Those days are done. They are behind us, and change is here.
Speaking in Brimingham, the prime minister has said he will defend Labour’s “tough decisions” on the economy being made in the budget this week.
He likened the public finances and the state of public services to a homeowner finding damp in their house.
Keir Starmer said:
Everyone who finds damp in their house knows they have to make the decision, paint over it or strip it out, pull off the plaster and deal with it once and for all.
So I will defend our tough decisions all day long.
It’s the right thing for our country, and it’s the only way to get the investment that we need.
That is how we will fix the NHS, rebuild Britain and protect the payslips of working people delivering on our mandate of change.
In a section of his speech that seems very much informed by the lengthy media debate over the weekend on the semantics of what constitutes a “working person”, prime minister Keir Starmer has said:
Every decision that we have made, every decision that we will make in the future, will be made with working people in our mind’s eye.
People who’ve been working harder and harder for years just to stand still. People doing the right thing, maybe still finding a little bit of money to put away. Paying their way, even in the cost of living crisis. But who feel that this country no longer gives them or their children a fair chance.
He continued about the identity of “working people”, saying:
I know some people want to have a debate about this, and I know there will always be an exception that proves the rule. Welcome to the wonders of a diverse country.
But I also know that the working people of this country know exactly who they are.
That they are the golden thread that runs through our agenda. Every single one of our national missions is about delivering for them, and we’re getting on with the job.
Kier Starmer has started his speech by reminding people that Birmingham, where he is speaking, had an announcement of a £500m investment in battery storage, and said “that’s a snapshot of the Britain we’re building.”
Keir Starmer is speaking in the West Midlands. We will bring you the key lines that emerge. You can watch it here …
Updated
Richard Parker, mayor of the West Midlands, is opening the event where Keir Starmer is due to speak.
The prime minister has begun the publicity push for his speech this morning on social media, with Keir Starmer issuing a post saying:
This is a landmark week for Britain. For the first time in 15 years, our budget will put working people first. The truth is, the Tories left you to pay the price for their chaos. We will clear up their mess. Step up in tough times, not stand back. We will deliver change.
Starmer is expected to speak and take questions from the media in the West Midlands this morning.
Labour’s leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, is expected to be making a visit in Glasgow today ahead of Wednesday’s Westminster budget, which he says “will end the era of austerity and prioritise investment and growth.”
In a piece for the Daily Record published today, Sarwar writes:
This week will see the first budget of a new UK Labour government. After 14 years of Tory chaos, division and decline, it will continue the job of turning the page on those lost Tory years, fixing the foundations and rebuilding our country.
This week you will hear many, the Tories and the SNP, who will want to pretend that all of the UK’s problems started three months ago or that somehow all of the UK’s problems can be fixed with one budget. They will be insulting the intelligence of the Scottish people by attempting to absolve the Tories of their woeful record.
He did sound a slight note of warning to his Labour colleagues based in London, though, adding:
I recognise that the Chancellor will have to raise revenues, but any tax rises must fall on those with the broadest shoulders, and not hit working people who have already borne the brunt of the Tories crashing the economy and SNP income tax hikes.
We need a Budget that prioritises investment and growth. We need to see a significant increase in capital investment. This is the change that Scotland needs — and I will be doing everything I can to make sure a Labour government delivers it.
Esther Webber at Politico has an interesting piece this morning looking at some of the complaints by newly elected MPs about how, one said, “tradition is standing in the way of MPs being able to either see their kids in the evening or do our job effectively.”
Among the complaints are the tradition of MPs having to bob up and down to attract the attention of the speaker in order to be called, late sitting hours, and the failure to implement electronic voting.
Green MP Ellie Chowns has complained the so-called bobbing “is not an efficient or accessible way to form an orderly queue to speak.”
Webber writes:
MPs are proposing the Commons should have a “call list” of the kind already employed by the House of Lords, where a list is published each day setting out who is going to speak and in what order.
Some would also like to see a reformed timetable, with earlier sitting hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and a return to digital voting, which was trialed during the Covid pandemic but later dropped.
You can read more here on the Politico website: Britain’s new MPs rage at parliament’s old traditions
Imposing VAT on international schools in the UK could lead to hundreds of pupils leaving, European diplomats have said.
They called for the institutions to retain the exemption from the 20% duty that private schools are expected to lose.
The German and French ambassadors to the UK, Miguel Berger and Hélène Duchêne, said international schools were distinct from British private schools because the option of transferring to the British state sector was not always realistic for their pupils.
Read more from Kevin Rawlinson here: VAT on international schools ‘could prompt hundreds of pupils to leave UK’
We are expecting Keir Starmer to give a pre-budget speech at about 11.15am this morning.
It will, naturally, be quite light on detail ahead of the budget itself – tradition dictates that major measures can be trailed and hinted at but not announced before the day – but the prime minister is expected to set out the direction of travel for his government this way, with overnight briefing suggesting he will say:
It is working people who pay the price when their government fails to deliver economic stability. They’ve had enough of slow growth, stagnant living standards and crumbling public services. They know that austerity is no solution. And they’ve seen the chaos when politicians let borrowing get out of control.
We choose a different path: honest, responsible, long-term decisions in the interests of working people. It’s stability that means we can invest, and reform that will maximise that investment.
Stability, investment, reform. That’s how we fix the NHS, rebuild Britain and protect working people’s payslips. Delivering on the mandate of change.
If people want to criticise the path we choose, that’s their prerogative. But let them then spell out a different direction. If they think the state has grown too big, let them tell working people which public services they would cut. If they don’t see our long-term investment in infrastructure as necessary, let them explain to working people how they would grow the economy for them.
This is an economic plan that will change the long-term trajectory on British growth for the better.
McFadden: Hunt is attacking OBR because Tories 'don't want to hear the truth' about fiscal position
Cabinet minister Pat McFadden has issued a strong rebuke to shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s criticism of the Office for Budget Responsibility plans to publish a report about the country’s fiscal situation, saying the Tories “don’t want to hear the truth” about the financial situation they left for the new government.
Speaking on GB News, McFadden said:
You have the sight today of the shadow chancellor desperately attacking the Office for Budget Responsibility for producing a report on the inheritance. They don’t want to hear the truth. They don’t want people to know about it.
We inherited a whole load of things that were announced for which no funding had been allocated. It was enormously irresponsible.
He said that when voters hear the budget announcement on Wednesday, they should be “annoyed at a mess that we inherited.”
He told viewers:
If people are annoyed about things that they’ll hear about in the Budget, what I would say is be annoyed at the Tory legacy. Some of these decisions are difficult, but we have to fix up the situation that we inherited.
There will be extra funds for public services, and there’ll be a different investment story for the future.
Hunt, who was appointed as chancellor by Liz Truss in October 2022 after her disastrous mini-budget led to the sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng, has complained that the decision of the OBR to publish a report on the same day as the budget was “a surprise and a significant concern”. [See 9.50am GMT]
McFadden was also inevitably again asked about the definition of a “working person” by the media, and said:
We’ve had a lot of discussion in recent days about definitions, about job descriptions, or people’s earning levels and so on. I don’t really think that’s the way to look at it.
The way to look at it is to look at what we said in our manifesto about income tax, national insurance and VAT. And the question is, will we keep to those promises when the Budget happens on Wednesday? We will.
McFadden added “It wasn’t somebody is included if they earn a particular amount or they do a particular job, I don’t think that’s a helpful way to think about it. We will stick to our manifesto promises.”
Hunt says 'friends' need to tell OBR if its political impartiality 'is being undermined'
Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt has returned to his theme this morning that Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) plans to publish a review of the Treasury on the same days as the budget are, he says, undermining the OBR’s position of political impartiality.
In a message on social media, the former chancellor said:
I’m a strong supporter of the OBR. I was proud to serve in the government which set it up and strongly believe it enhances the UK’s economic credibility. However its credibility in holding the government to account depends on political impartiality so if that is being undermined friends need to say so. It cannot be right to publish a review of what happened under the previous government without consulting those who had political responsibility at the time.
I'm a strong supporter of the OBR. I was proud to serve in the government which set it up and strongly believe it enhances the UK's economic credibility. However its credibility in holding the government to account depends on political impartiality so if that is being undermined… pic.twitter.com/5BrEBcQS8W
— Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) October 28, 2024
As my colleague Graeme Wearden reported late on Sunday, Britain’s fiscal watchdog is to publish a detailed breakdown of the £22bn “black hole” that Labour says it inherited after Rachel Reeves presents the budget on Wednesday, which Hunt has described as “a surprise and a significant concern.”
McFadden: Labour budget will be 'most honest' in years
Cabinet minister Pat McFadden has said that the new Labour government had “levelled with people” ahead of the budget, and that it would be “the most honest … we’ve had for some years.”
Speaking on Times Radio, PA Media quotes McFadden saying:
There’s no point in telling people everything’s absolutely fine when the prison system is in a state of collapse, when NHS waiting lists are at a record high, when we’ve got crumbling schools.
There’s so much that’s wrong that we’ve got to fix and it’s important to set that out honestly and candidly for the public.
I think we’ll have the most honest Budget on Wednesday that we’ve had for some years.
An important thing is when people see their payslip after the Budget, those key things to look for: the level of tax – income tax and national insurance – in their payslip in their wages, that won’t change after Wednesday.
Jeremy Corbyn and the independent alliance of MPs have issued a letter ahead of the budget with five things they are asking Chancellor Rachel Reeves to implement.
Saying “We have the means to end poverty, we just need the political will”, Corbyn listed five priorities:
Scrap the two-child benefits cap
Reverse cuts to winter fuel
Tax wealth
Protect welfare
Invest in a greener future
In a letter accompanying the requests, the independent group of MPs write:
It is a national scandal that 4.2 million children and 2.1 million pensioners are living in poverty in the sixth richest country in the world.
You have previously told the British public to prepare for “difficult decisions” to repair this nation’s finances.
At the very same time, you have committed to raising defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP. Imagine if we spent that money on renewable energy, social housing, schools and the NHS instead.
Our full letter — demanding welfare not warfare — here. pic.twitter.com/X0dMxiHbHP
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) October 28, 2024
The Labour party this morning is touting a piece in the Sun in which the government is announcing it will pledge £500m to fixing what it terms “the pothole crisis” in Wednesday’s budget.
NEW: This week, @RachelReevesMP is set to pledge £500 million more to fix roads and end the pothole crisis.
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) October 28, 2024
This means working people will keep hundreds of pounds in their pockets.
Read more 👇https://t.co/EdVAvFZz0h
Josh Halliday is the North of England editor at the Guardian
A Labour MP has warned that the government risks embarking on “austerity 2.0” in a stark warning ahead of the budget on Wednesday.
Kim Johnson, the MP for Liverpool Riverside, urged the chancellor Rachel Reeves to reverse expected cuts to benefits and the winter fuel allowance, citing fears that “people will die this year unless this cut is reversed”.
In a letter to Reeves published on Monday, Johnson writes: “The anticipated £3 billion in sickness benefit cuts risk driving some of the most vulnerable in our society into poverty and could be perceived as austerity 2.0.”
Liverpool Riverside is ranked as the most deprived parliamentary constituency in the UK, where 43% of children are classed as living in poverty – more than double the national average.
Johnson, a backbench MP who has not shied away from criticising the Labour leadership, writes that her constituency has suffered “systematic impoverishment, skyrocketing inequalities and plummeting living standards under successive Tory governments, while the right and powerful continue to benefit”.
She adds: “On 30 October, these communities who voted for change will be looking to Labour to deliver for them. We must not let them down.”
During his media round this morning Pat McFadden rather hit the nail on the head about the futility of interviews around the time of the budget, when ministers are forbidden from giving any details in advance. He told viewers of BBC Breakfast:
I can’t speculate on the individual measures. We’re in this period where you interview people a day or two before a budget, and we really can’t comment on what might be in it.
It seems like that the question and answer session after Keir Starmer’s speech this morning will mostly consist of him saying “Well, I can’t give you any details, wait until Wednesday” to an increasingly frustrated broadcast journalist pool. We will, of course, bring you any key lines that do emerge when the prime minister speaks.
Atkins: Starmer's budget plans hark back to '1970s socialism'
Conservative shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins has accused the Keir Starmer government of imposing “1970s socialism” with its budget plans.
Speaking on GB News, Atkins, who retained her Louth and Horncastle seat in July’s election, said:
This is socialism that we’ve seen in the 1970s. This Labour government came into power promising they weren’t going to raise taxes. They have this peculiar definition of working people. They don’t seem to understand what a working person is, even though they’ve set this test for themselves.
If you have assets, if you work, if you’re a pensioner looking this winter as to how you’re going to make up that shortfall, given that they’ve slashed winter fuel payments, this is going to affect all of us.
This idea that they’re compartmentalising and separating us into different categories of people that they find acceptable, I think is the very worst of socialism.
It seems unlikely that many on the left of the Labour party would claim that Rachel Reeves is about to launch a set of socialist economic policies in the budget this week.
In its election manifesto, Labour ruled out tax rises on income tax, employee national insurance contributions, and VAT.
McFadden reiterates no raises in income taxes, employee national insurance contributions or VAT in budget
On the BBC Breakfast programme cabinet minister Pat McFadden was asked more about Labour’s definition of “working people”, a phrase which has dominated media coverage in recent days.
He said:
I don’t define this by picking a job, or an income level, and relate it to the promises you just mentioned in the manifesto. We were talking about the taxes that people pay on their wages, and we said we will not increase those.
Look, that was true in the campaign. It’s true today. It will be true after Wednesday. We will stick to those promises when the Chancellor updates the budget speech this week.
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has described it as “frustrating” that both Labour and Conservatives ignored his warning before the election that there was a significant problem with the public finances.
He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:
One heard the senior politicians from both sides continually saying that there wasn’t this problem, and taxes wouldn’t really have to go up, and growth would source it all.
But everybody knew that there was a big problem with the public finances, and we’d either have to get tax increases or significant spending cuts.
And lo and behold, we’re being told that that has now been discovered, and it looks like we’re going to get something like £40bn of tax increases, if the briefing is to be believed.
And that would make this one of the biggest tax raising budgets ever.
McFadden: 'real reasons' for optimism as country approaches first Labour budget in 14 years
Cabinet minister Pat McFadden has said there are “real reasons” to have optimism as the country approaches the first Labour budget for 14 years later this week.
He stated that the government had “inherited a plan to decline, to reduce, investment” from Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, and that the measures Labour were taking in the budget were “tough decisions” but the start of a turnaround.
He told viewers of BBC Breakfast:
I think people should look for three things in the budget. Will it stabilize the country’s public finances and do so in a way that keeps our promises? It will
Will it also start to turn around the public services and the NHS in particular. We will start that road with a combination of both investment and reform.
And critically, will it change the country’s story for the future by investing in the things that we need, the better schools, hospitals, the houses we need, the transport infrastructure, the energy infrastructure. This is what Britain has to do if it’s going to get better economic growth in the future.
What we inherited was a plan to decline, to reduce investment in all of those things going forward. That’s not a role we were prepared to accept we need to invest in the future of the country if we’re going to have a better future. So there are tough decisions in this budget. There are also real reasons to look for hope and optimism, for better public services, a better NHS and a better investment and growth story for the UK in the future.
McFadden has served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster since July’s general election.
Starmer speech to say budget will 'ignore the populist chorus of easy answers'
Keir Starmer will be making a pre-budget speech later today in which he is expected to lay out what he says is the dire state of the fiscal reality of the country, but promise that “better days are ahead”.
In briefings given in advance of the speech, the prime minister is expected to say:
This is not 1997, when the economy was decent but public services were on their knees. And it’s not 2010, where public services were strong, but the public finances were weak. These are unprecedented circumstances.
And that’s before we even get to the long-term challenges ignored for 14 years: an economy riddled with weakness on productivity and investment, a state that needs urgent modernisation to face down the challenge of a volatile world.
Starmer will say the Budget will embrace the “harsh light of fiscal reality”, and will have to “ignore the populist chorus of easy answers”.
In the 2024 Labour manifesto the party said:
The Conservatives have raised the tax burden to a 70-year high. We will ensure taxes on working people are kept as low as possible. Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of income Tax, or VAT.
Welcome and opening summary …
Prime minister Keir Starmer will make a speech today in which he is widely expected to say that this week’s budget will embrace the “harsh light of fiscal reality” because “it’s not 2010”, but he will promise that “better days are ahead”.
Here are your headlines …
UK businesses are losing staff working time because of waits for healthcare or caring duties due to underfunded public services, the TUC says
Pubs and restaurants are warning of closures and a tough Christmas ahead if the budget raises taxes and ends a Covid-era relief on business rates
The prime minister has said content creators must be paid and vowed to ensure AI technology “does not begin to chip away” at press freedoms
Starmer has appointed Claire Reynolds, a former aide to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, as his new political director in Downing Street
Chancellor Rachel Reeves and health secretary Wes Streeting are visiting a London hospital this morning. Labour’s leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, is making a pre-budget visit to a community group in Glasgow.
In the Commons there will be housing questions this afternoon, as well as a debate on remembrance and the contribution of veterans. The Lords will see the committee stage of the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
It is Martin Belam with you here today. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
