Key events
Rachel Reeves will seek to make about £3bn of cuts to welfare over the next four years by restricting access to sickness benefits, it is understood, according to the PA news agency.
The chancellor is expected to commit to the previous Tory government’s plans to save the sum by reforming work capability rules, as first reported by the Telegraph.
Under Conservative proposals, welfare eligibility would have been tightened so that about 400,000 more people who are signed off long-term would be assessed as needing to prepare for employment by 2028/29, reducing the benefits bill by an estimated £3bn.
The PA news agency reports that tt is understood that Reeves will commit to the plan to save £3bn over four years, but work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall will decide how the system will be changed in order to achieve this.
A government spokesperson said:
We have always said that the work capability assessment is not working and needs to be reformed or replaced alongside a proper plan to support disabled people to work.
We will deliver savings through our own reforms, including genuine support to help disabled people into work.”
Reeves is looking to raise up to £40bn from tax increases and spending cuts in the budget as the government seeks to avoid a return to austerity.
Keir Starmer on Thursday faced a cabinet backlash over the planned measures, with several ministers writing to the prime minister directly to express concern about proposals to reduce their departmental spending by as much as 20%.
Downing Street warned that “not every department will be able to do everything they want to” and “tough decisions” would have to be made.
According to the PA news agency, the prime minister’s official spokesperson confirmed Starmer and Reeves had agreed on the “major measures” of the budget, including the “spending envelope” that sets out limits for individual Whitehall departments.
While some spending cuts are all but inevitable, tax rises are expected to form the centrepiece of Reeves’ plans to fill what the Labour government calls a “black hole” in the public finances left behind by its Tory predecessors.
Reports suggest capital gains tax and inheritance tax are among some of the levers the chancellor will pull to raise revenue as she seeks to put the economy on a firmer footing.
Labour will bring its ‘own reforms’ to benefits system to make £3bn cuts, says work and pension minister
Labour will bring its “own reforms” to the benefits system in order to make £3bn worth of cuts rather than stick to Tory plans, a minister has suggested, reports the PA news agency.
Work and pensions minister Alison McGovern was asked by Times Radio why Labour was pressing ahead with plans made by the previous Conservative government to reform work capability rules.
She replied:
Like all departments, the Department for Work and Pensions has to make savings because we are in a terrible financial situation.
To be clear, on that point we will bring forward our own reforms because the last 14 years have been a complete failure when it comes to employment.”
Pressed if this meant there would be no cuts, she added:
We will not go ahead with the Tory plan because that was theirs. We will need to make savings like all departments, but we will bring forward our own reforms.”
Rachel Reeves will seek to make around £3bn of cuts to welfare over the next four years by restricting access to sickness benefits, it is understood. The chancellor is looking to raise up to £40bn from tax hikes and spending cuts in the budget as the government seeks to avoid a return to austerity, reports the PA news agency.
Elsewhere, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, will join US president Joe Biden, French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin for talks focused largely on how to end the fighting in Ukraine as Russian forces advance in the east and a bleak winter of power cuts looms.
More on that in a moment. In other developments and upcoming events:
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British foreign secretary David Lammy will meet his counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Friday to “challenge” China on sensitive issues like Russia’s war in Ukraine, as the two nations seek to rebuild frayed ties. Lammy is the first British cabinet minister to visit China since Labour prime minister Keir Starmer took office in July.
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Rachel Reeves is considering raising the tax on vaping products in her budget this month as figures show that a quarter of 11 to 15-year-olds in England have used e-cigarettes. The chancellor is looking at increasing the tax after a consultation carried out by the last Conservative government.
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The chancellor is taking action to ensure her budget plan for a multibillion-pound increase in government borrowing to fund infrastructure projects avoids a Liz Truss-style meltdown in financial markets. Ahead of her tax and spending event on 30 October, Reeves is convening on Friday the first meeting of a taskforce of leading City figures to advise on infrastructure projects.
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Kemi Badenoch has criticised a Conservative MP’s suggestion she could not head the Tories because she was too “preoccupied” with her children, saying “it isn’t always women who have parental responsibilities”.
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Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, has written to the prime minister urging him to intervene and stop the cuts in this year’s budget. He said, in a letter seen by the PA news agency, that Starmer must “listen to voters and your own cabinet colleagues: intervene now, overrule the chancellor and stop the cuts, or people in Scotland will never forgive the Labour party”.
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The Home Office has recruited 200 staff to clear a backlog of 23,300 modern slavery cases left by the last government, a minister has told the Guardian. Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, said the department planned to end prolonged uncertainty and anguish for survivors by finalising the cases within two years.
