Cooper clashes with Reeves over spending cuts

Telegraph

2 days ago

Yvette Cooper is battling Rachel Reeves for more money with just a week left before the Treasury unveils new departmental budgets for the rest of the decade.
The Home Office is understood to be one of the few departments that has not settled negotiations with the Treasury before the spending review concludes on June 11.
Ms Cooper, the Home Secretary, had her hand strengthened when six police chiefs publicly warned that Labour promises could be missed without more money.
Labour promised at last summer's general election to halve knife crime, reduce violence against women and girls and recruit 13,000 extra police officers, all of which need investment to deliver.
Angela Rayner, the Communities Secretary, is understood to be another Cabinet minister who is taking their talks with the Chancellor down to the wire.
She has been attempting to guarantee a significant funding boost for building social housing and is responsible for making sure councils are given enough money to deliver key services.
Unprotected departments, for which the Government has made no specific spending promises, including the Home Office and the Communities, are facing real-terms cuts in their spending in the latter years of this decade.
Overall day-to-day departmental spending will grow by 1.2 per cent annually in real terms in the financial years ahead but much of the increase will be taken up by the NHS, defence and schools budgets.
Ms Reeves will attempt to frame the announcements as showing that Labour is focused on investing in the country's security, health and economy in every part of the country.
Treasury insiders are pointing back to the £40 billion tax increase announced last autumn to counter Left-wing criticism that hard choices are not being made to protect public spending.
But much of the money was front-loaded into the 2024-25 and 2025-26 financial years, with spending rises set at much less generous levels for the three following financial years.
The Chancellor's allies are making clear that there will be no tax changes announced next week, with any such decisions held off until the Budget in the autumn.
Similarly, there will be no change to overall public spending levels – what is known as the spending 'envelope' – when Ms Reeves unveils the spending review conclusions.
Instead, Cabinet ministers for weeks have been ordered to find savings in what Whitehall insiders admit is a tough set of negotiations with costs being closely scrutinised.
Sir Keir Starmer has complicated calculations by announcing a part-reversal of the abolition of the universal winter fuel payment, which saw around 10 million pensioners lose the payments of up to £300 last year.
The details of how many pensioners will get the payments this coming winter could come next week, the Prime Minister appeared to indicate in a BBC Radio 4 interview on Monday.
One idea being scrutinised is to restore the payments for all pensioners and then claw equivalent money back from only the richest via the tax system.
That would be a simpler solution than changing the threshold – currently set at around £11,500 a year – above which pensioners do not get the payment.
But it would also see most of the £1.5 billion original saving being lost, meaning an alternative source of funds must be found.
The spending review is not expected to announce new details for increasing defence spending from 2.5 per cent of GDP a year to 3 per cent.
Sir Keir calls the target an 'ambition' and says it will be delivered in the next parliament, meaning after the next general election expected in 2029 if Labour is re-elected.
He has faced mounting pressure over failing to name the year this will be delivered. But, with the specifics of how to hit 2.5 per cent only recently outlined, Treasury insiders insist detailed planning on when and how to reach 3 per cent is not coming next week.
Six of Britain's police chiefs including Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and Serena Kennedy, the chief constable of Merseyside Police, went public last week calling on the Treasury to properly fund the Home Office.
They wrote in The Times that it was 'the most important moment in decades for the government to choose to back policing' and warned that their ability to 'secure outcomes for victims is at risk' without 'substantial investments'.