Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to unveil £35billion in tax rises in just hours when she delivers the first ever Budget given by a woman.
In what has already been dubbed as “the biggest heist in modern political history”, the Labour politician will set out plans to increase money coming into the Treasury’s coffers, slash public spending, and ramp up Government borrowing.
Reeves will paint her Budget – Labour’s first in 14 years – as a major opportunity to change the future of Britain.
She is expected to say: “This is not the first time that it has fallen to the Labour Party to rebuild Britain. In 1945, it was the Labour Party that rebuilt our country out of the rubble of the Second World War. In 1964, it was the Labour Party that rebuilt Britain with the white heat of technology. And in 1997, it was the Labour Party that rebuilt our schools and hospitals.
“Today, it falls to this Labour Party, this Labour Government, to rebuild Britain once again.”
But critics have already accused the Government of breaking its General Election promises and of crippling the country.
Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick said: “This Budget completes the biggest heist in modern political history. The Labour Party won power by lying to the British public about their plan to hike taxes.”
Meanwhile, rival Kemi Badenoch said: “Reeves is about to go on a spending binge with the nation’s credit card, throwing billions into an unreformed system which will take the money but not deliver the results.”
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Ahead of the Budget – what we already know
Rachel Reeves will deliver her Budget in the House of Commons shortly after 12.30pm. But plenty of announcements from the major fiscal event have already been confirmed.
We already know that the cap on bus fares will rise by 50 per cent from £2 to £3, the national minimum wage will rise by 6.7 per cent from April, and that the Government will change its fiscal rules to allow for billions more in borrowing.
It used to be a resigning matter for a Chancellor to brief out aspects of the Budget in advance but those rules are rarely respected my ministers these days – much to the annoyance of House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle.