Rachel Reeves told an investors’ conference last night that “borrowing can’t be the only answer” to hiking defence spending:
“The money has to come from somewhere… Everyone can see the challenges. We are spending 2.6% of GDP from next April and the pressures are only going in one direction.”
Reeves is currently battling John Healey and the MoD over the year-delayed Defence Investment Plan. The Treasury is refusing to formally commit to spending 3% on defence by 2030. There is a £28 billion funding shortfall for defence and proposals have included £10 billion of cuts, especially to the capital budgets of DESNZ and DfT. Some in government are trying to push the total funding increase below £13 billion…
Some co-conspirators may remember Reeves speaking to the CBI in November 2024, where she said she was “not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes”:
“We’ve now drawn a line under the fiction peddled by the previous government. We’ve put our public finances back on a firm footing. And we’ve now set the budgets for public services for the duration of this parliament. Public services now need to live within their means because I’m really clear. I’m not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes. And that is why at this Budget we did wipe the slate clean to put public finances and public services on a firm footing and as a result we won’t have to do a budget like this ever again.”
The welfare mammoth sits untouched…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”