Rachel Reeves

Labour plan for £2bn in Whitehall cuts will hit frontline services, union warns

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/23/labour-plan-whitehall-cuts-rachel-reeves-frontline-services-pcs-union

Wednesday’s spring statement has been overshadowed by where the cuts are due to fall, with some departments asked to model cuts of up to 11%. Photograph: pxl.store/Alamy

‘You can’t cut your way to growth,’ says PCS head as Reeves confirms move to cut administrative costs by 15% by 2030

Rachel Reeves’s planned cuts of £2bn to government departments will hit frontline services from jobcentres to HMRC phone lines and efforts to cut the asylum backlog, a union has said.

On Sunday the chancellor confirmed plans to seek a 15% reduction in admin costs across Whitehall, amounting to about £2bn a year, by the end of the decade. She said this would also result in about 10,000 job losses in the civil service, although this was not a target.

As she prepares to give her spring statement on Wednesday, Reeves is under pressure to balance the books in line with her fiscal rules, meaning some departments are in line for spending cuts to avoid more tax rises or higher borrowing.

But the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) warned her that there would be consequences for public services after 15 years of underfunding by the Tories.

Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the PCS, said: “You hear that every day from the public, that they wait too long on the phone when they try to make tax payments, jobseekers rushed through the system in just 10 minutes because there aren’t enough staff to see them, victims of crime waiting until 2027 to have their cases heard in the courts as well as the backlog in the asylum system which results in additional hotel costs.

“The impact of making cuts will not only disadvantage our members but the public we serve and the services they rely on. We’ve heard this before under Gordon Brown when cuts were made to backroom staff and [the] consequences of that were chaos.”

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/23/labour-plan-whitehall-cuts-rachel-reeves-frontline-services-pcs-union

Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Continue ReadingLabour plan for £2bn in Whitehall cuts will hit frontline services, union warns

All UK families ‘to be worse off by 2030’ as poor bear the brunt, new data warns

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/22/all-uk-families-to-be-worse-off-by-2030-as-poor-bear-the-brunt-new-data-warns

[UK prime minister Keir Starmer poses in front of soldiers. He] has vowed to put more money in the pockets of working people, but those on lowest incomes are predicted to be hardest hit financially. Photograph: Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street

Living standards for all UK families are set to fall by 2030, with those on the lowest incomes declining twice as fast as middle and high earners, according to new data that raises serious questions about Keir Starmer’s pledge to make working people better off.

The grim economic analysis, produced by the respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), comes before the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, makes her spring statement on Wednesday in which she will announce new cuts to public spending rather than increase borrowing or raise taxes, so as to keep within the government’s “iron clad” fiscal rules.

In December, the prime minister announced a series of new ­“milestones” that he said would be passed before the next general ­election, which is likely to be held in 2029. The first of these was “putting more money in the pockets of ­working people”.

But with many Labour MPs already deeply concerned over Reeves’s plan to raise about £5bn by cutting ­benefits, including for disabled ­people, evidence that living standards are on course to fall markedly under a Labour government – and to decline most for the least well off – will add to the mood of growing disquiet in party’s ranks.

The JRF analysis rests on a ­realistic assumption that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will adjust its forecasts in line with the Bank of England and other main forecasters when it makes them public on Wednesday. The OBR is expected to halve the expected growth rate for this year from 2% to about 1%.

In what it describes as a “dismal reality”, the JRF said its detailed analysis shows that the past year could mark a high point for living standards in this parliament. It concludes that the average family will be £1,400 worse off by 2030, representing a 3% fall in their disposable incomes. The lowest income families will be £900 a year worse off, amounting to a 6% fall in the amount they have to spend.

The JRF also said that if living standards have not recovered by 2030, Starmer will not only have failed to pass his No 1 milestone but will also have presided over the first government since 1955 to have seen a fall in living standards across a full parliament.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/22/all-uk-families-to-be-worse-off-by-2030-as-poor-bear-the-brunt-new-data-warns

Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the "hard times".
Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.
Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.

dizzy: Despite being intended as satire, my satire is proving very prophetic, even correct. 26/3/25. That’s not correct is it? While satire was an intention, it’s clear that the intention of many instances was to project into the future.

Continue ReadingAll UK families ‘to be worse off by 2030’ as poor bear the brunt, new data warns

Reeves plans new cuts as economy sags

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reeves-plans-new-cuts-economy-sags

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during a meeting at Downing Street in London with regulators. She is expected to use the meeting to announce more detail on how the Government will cut the cost of regulation by a quarter and set out plans to slim down or abolish regulators themselves, March 17, 2025

CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves is set to announce a huge new programme of spending cuts as unemployment rises and anger at Labour’s assault on disability benefits mounts.

She will use her spring spending statement next week to unveil a fresh austerity programme as the government continues to rule out tax rises on the wealthy as an alternative.

Despair is turning to anger among backbench Labour MPs and trade unions at the government’s course, which is already seeing Labour plunge to record lows in the opinion polls.

Ms Reeves’s death-wish economics come as official statistics showed joblessness increasing, including among young workers.

Unemployment is up by 0.1 per cent, with a youth unemployment rate of 12.9 per cent.

Commenting on the figures, Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “The labour market figures today highlight the cruelty of the government’s reforms to disability benefits.

“Unemployment is rising, and the wider measure of underemployment is now at 4.75 million with only 816,000 vacancies in the economy — meaning there are already nearly six people chasing every vacancy.

“Those figures exclude disabled people currently deemed unable to work or with only limited capacity for work.

“The reality is that the government’s proposals will not help disabled people off of benefits and into work, but off benefits and into deeper poverty.”

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reeves-plans-new-cuts-economy-sags

Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Continue ReadingReeves plans new cuts as economy sags

Morning Star Editorial: What is the point of Labour? The key question

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/what-point-labour-key-question

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a reception to celebrate St Patrick’s Day at 10 Downing Street, London, March 19, 2025

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[T]he Starmer-Reeves agenda is entirely dictated by the needs of finance capital, mediated through the Treasury and the military.

There is no question, of course, of arms spending being affected by this renewed austerity — on the contrary it is slated to carry on rising for the next decade. Critics of the welfare cuts should not be reticent about making this connection.

Trying to protect spending on services without challenging this renewed militarism hands the Starmerites a free pass by allowing a key argument to go unchallenged.

Starmer’s priorities have a mounting number of victims. Again in Commons questions, Northern Ireland social democrat Colum Eastwood identified one, a deeply disabled constituent able to access benefits under the Tories but now facing destitution as her personal independence payments are withdrawn.

Eastwood then asked the key question. Given all that — what is the point of Labour?

It is a question millions across the country, including many who voted Labour last July, are now asking. This is governance in the interests of capital, not labour by any stretch.

The left in Labour must transition from protest to action against the government if there is to be any positive answer to Eastwood’s question. Issuing statements is not enough if Starmer and Reeves can continue to count on votes in Parliament and canvassers in the country for their anti-worker programme.

Absent that fighting approach, the logical conclusion must be that something new, articulating the values of socialism, is needed.

Original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/what-point-labour-key-question

Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the "hard times".
Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.
Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: What is the point of Labour? The key question

The cuts agenda: disabled people in Labour’s sights

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cuts-agenda-disabled-people-labour’s-sights

HARMFUL RHETORIC: Keir Starmer and Liz Kendall

Far from addressing the causes of ill-health and disability, Starmer, Reeves and Kendall are committed to unleashing more misery for disabled people, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY

In 2016 the UN Committee for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities conducted an investigation into the treatment of disabled people in Britain.

It produced a damning report, which concluded that disabled people in this country faced systematic discrimination on multiple levels.

In 2024, following the submission of evidence by Disabled People Against Cuts and other disability rights groups, the UN investigated Britain for a second time.

In late April the UN committee for disabled people issued a 14-page report which concluded that Britain “has failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.”

It also called on Britain to take measures to prevent disabled people on benefits from killing themselves. At the UN committee hearing in March 2024 it noted how hundreds of disabled people had killed themselves due to sanctions and other repressive measures of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which really should be called the Department for War on the Poor.

Since this UN report Labour has been elected with a landslide majority. Yet in the many Bills announced for the new parliament not one addresses the serious issues raised by the United Nations.

Sadly, both Liz Kendall, new boss of the DWP, and Rachel Reeves the Chancellor, between them have made it clear that people on sickness benefits are a burden on our society and that the money spent on sick people claiming universal credit, employment support allowance (ESA) and personal independence payments (PIP) could be better spent on more “important things” in our society. They have repeated reactionary Tory propaganda which the UN cites as a reason for a spike in disability hate crime which is massively under reported and rarely investigated by the police.

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Original article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cuts-agenda-disabled-people-labour’s-sights

Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingThe cuts agenda: disabled people in Labour’s sights