Rachel Reeves announces the first Labour budget in 14 years, and the first to be delivered by a female Chancellor.
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Britain voted for change, she says. The government has a mandate to restore stability and start a decade of renewal, she says.
- Reeves says Labour must ‘invest, invest, invest’ to promote growth
The only way to deliver growth is to “invest, invest, invest,” she says.
She says Labour has had to renew Britain before, and it will again.
- Reeves says she is setting aside £11.8bn to compensate infected blood victim scandals, and £1.8bn for Post Office scandal victims
Reeves says people can see the problems facing public services. She says:
The country has inherited not just broken public finances, but broken public services too.
The British people can see and they can feel that in their everyday lives: NHS waiting lists at record levels, children in portacabins as school roofs crumble, trains that do not arrive, rivers filled with polluted waste, prisons overflowing, crimes which are not investigated and criminals who are not punished.
She says the last government did not provide funds for services, and for things like compensation scheme (for Post Office operators, and for victims of the blood scandal).
She says Rishi Sunak apologised to the victims of the blood scandal. But he did not budget for compensation, she says.
- She says she is setting aside £11.8bn to compensate the blood scandal victims, and £1.8bn for the victims of the Post Office scandal.
- Reeves says she is maintaining the Bank of England’s inflation target of 2%.
She thanks Bank of England staff for their help.
And she hanks her predecessors for their advice. Kwasi Kwarteng said in a Mail on Sunday article his mini-budget was not perfect. She agrees, she says.
- Inflation is now forecast to be 2.5% this year, and 2.6% next year.
Read more:
Rachel Reeves first Labour Budget in 14 years in detail