Michael Simmons is The Spectator's economics editor
10 min listen
There were few surprises in Rachel Reeves’s spending review today. Health was the big winner, with a £29bn increase in day-to-day spending and £39bn was announced to build social and affordable housing. The main eyebrow-raiser was the announcement that the Home Office will end the use of hotels for asylum seekers within this parliament; this
Rachel Reeves has just taken her seat after delivering the first spending review since the pandemic. The plans outlined today set departmental budgets for the next three years and infrastructure spending for the next four. Total departmental spending will rise by 2.3 per cent – but, predictably, the spoils will not be shared evenly. The
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Rachel Reeves has pledged a ‘new era of nuclear power’ as the government confirms a £14.2 billion investment in the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk. This comes on the eve of Labour’s spending review, with the government expected to highlight spending pledges designed to give a positive impression of Labour’s handling of the economy.
The unemployment rate has risen to 4.6 per cent, the Office for National Statistics has revealed. This morning’s figures mark the first proper reading of the jobs market since April, when the minimum wage was hiked and the £25 billion raid on employer National Insurance started. It’s not just the joblessness rate rising: the number
When Rachel Reeves last week tried to shift the narrative around her spending review – from one of fiscal restraint to ‘spend, spend, spend’ – she ‘unveiled’ £113 billion in infrastructure investment. But for those in Westminster with more than a short-term memory, they will have felt a distinct sense of déjà vu. That’s because
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James Nation, formerly a special adviser to Rishi Sunak and now an MD at Forefront Advisers, joins the Spectator’s deputy political editor James Heale and economics editor Michael Simmons, to talk through the latest on the government’s spending review, which is due to be announced on Wednesday. The last holdout appears to be Home Secretary Yvette
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Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride delivered a speech today where he attempted to banish the ghost of Liz Truss and improve the Conservatives’ reputation over fiscal credibility. And he compared leader Kemi Badenoch to Thatcher, saying she too struggled at first and will ‘get better’ at the dispatch box. LBC broadcaster Iain Dale and the Spectator’s
‘The ONS apologises for any inconvenience caused’ is becoming an all-too-familiar refrain from Britain’s statisticians. The latest mea culpa came after a blunder involving vehicle tax data led the Office for National Statistics to overstate April’s inflation figure. Initially reported as 3.5 per cent, the true figure was 3.4 per cent – only revealed once
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Rachel Reeves unveiled billions of pounds of investment today for transport and infrastructure projects, as Labour attempts to demonstrate that next week’s spending review is not just about departmental cuts. However, most of the political noise today has centred on her announcement that the winter fuel cut will be reversed by the end of the
Rachel Reeves has been warned again that the slim headroom against her ‘ironclad’ fiscal rule could be wiped out if growth prospects worsen. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in its latest economic outlook for the UK that ‘very thin fiscal buffers could be insufficient to provide adequate support without breaching the
Changes to how inheritance tax and trusts are treated for non-doms have already put the nation’s finances on shakier ground – something I revealed in a cover story last month. Now, a new report suggests these anti-business Treasury policies may risk killing off Britain’s family firms too. Fresh analysis by the CBI’s economics consultancy, commissioned by Family
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Lots to discuss today: Robert Jenrick takes on TfL, a Nazi jibe from the attorney general and allegations of shoplifting made against our own Michael Simmons. But we start with Keir Starmer’s big speech yesterday, where the theme was ‘get Nigel’, after polling from More in Common showed that framing the election as a two-horse
This week Dominic Cummings said the Tories may have ‘crossed the event horizon’. He was trying to find a tech bro way of saying the game is up: they’re finished as an electoral force and it’s only Labour, Reform and the Lib Dems still in play. But might the Tories have one last chance? If
Overnight three federal judges on the United States Court of International Trade ruled that Donald Trump’s worldwide tariffs are unlawful and blocked them from going into effect. A group of businesses had taken the President’s administration to court, successfully arguing that the tariffs announced on ‘Liberation Day’ were beyond the powers of the presidency. The
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James Heale and Michael Simmons join Patrick Gibbons to discuss the speculation that Labour could scrap the two-child benefit cap. Is this just red meat for the left of the party or is it a sign that public opinion around welfare has shifted? And, with mixed messages on the economy, can the country afford to
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned Britain faces ‘difficult fiscal choices’ if it is to meet ever increasing spending pressures. The fund predicted a surge in public spending, driven largely by commitments to welfare, health, and pensions. According to the IMF, these policies will push public spending as a share of GDP up by 8
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Fallout continues from yesterday’s summit and the announcement of a deal between the UK and EU – or is it fair to call it ‘fallout’ as, despite criticism over the deal from Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, has the public got Brexit fatigue? James Heale and Michael Simmons join Patrick Gibbons to talk about the
As much of Westminster gets up in arms about fish, the major change in Starmer’s EU deal is going under the radar. The deal, announced yesterday, commits Britain and the EU to exploring Britain’s participation in Europe’s energy market. If we go forward with this, it effectively gives up our energy policy to Brussels. It’s
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The Prime Minister is in Albania today to focus on immigration: the government has announced that the UK is in talks to set up ‘return hubs’ with other countries to send failed asylum seekers abroad. Unfortunately for the government though, also going abroad are Britain’s millionaires. In the cover article for this week’s Spectator, our economics
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The great escape: why the rich are fleeing Britain Keir Starmer worries about who is coming into Britain but, our economics editor Michael Simmons writes in the magazine this week, he should have ‘sleepless nights’ thinking about those leaving. Since 2016, nearly 30,000 millionaires have left – ‘an outflow unmatched in the developed world’. Tax