Why Spending Review offers Stormont a huge opportunity to bring about reforms
A three-year settlement from the Chancellor provides a chance for the Executive to take longer-term look at what it funds and how
Westminster's imminent Spending Review will set the social and economic tone for the whole of the UK. Its implications for Northern Ireland will be significant, as will the Executive's decisions about the funding it receives.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves' announcement on Wednesday, June 11, will signal the Labour Government's priorities for the rest of this mandate and set funding allocations for the next three years. This settlement is intended to give stability to Government departments and provide time and space to plan spending, investment and reform.
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Reuters
35 minutes ago
- Reuters
Quarter of UK mental ill health benefit claimants expect to lose out from planned reforms, charity says
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Western Telegraph
37 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
‘Bold rewiring' of economy needed as Tories seek to regain trust, Stride says
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She has insisted these constraints are 'non-negotiable' amid wrangles with Cabinet colleagues over departmental budgets ahead of next week's announcement. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said her fiscal rules are 'non-negotiable' (Peter Byrne/PA) Mr Stride will say: 'At the spending review next week, we can expect her to trumpet all of the additional projects and programmes she is funding – without mentioning the fact it is all being paid for from borrowing.' Attacking Nigel Farage's Reform party after its gains in the local elections last month, the shadow chancellor will say: 'Take Reform. Their economic prescription is pure populism. It doubles down on the 'magic money tree' we thought had been banished with Jeremy Corbyn.' During the speech in central London, he will say the two 'core priorities' for the party will be 'stability and fiscal responsibility', with control of spending and reform of welfare and public services. 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Responding to the Tory announcement on Thursday, she said: 'Mel Stride was one of the Conservative MPs who kowtowed to the failed Treasury orthodoxy and was set on undermining my Plan for Growth from the moment I beat his chosen candidate for the party leadership. 'Even when judged by the OBR's flawed calculations, my plans were chalked up as costing less than the spending spree Rishi Sunak pursued as Chancellor during the pandemic – yet Mel Stride never took him to task over any of that. 'And why has he singularly failed to examine the role played by the Bank of England in causing the LDI crisis that sent gilt rates spiralling? Why has he never asked the pertinent questions of the Governor, despite the Bank since admitting that two-thirds of the gilt spike was down to them? 'My plan to turbocharge the economy and get Britain growing again provided the only pathway for the Conservatives to avoid a catastrophic defeat at the election.' 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Western Telegraph
37 minutes ago
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Retailers call for urgent national action on high street crime
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