Housing, social care and universities: who lost out in the UK budget?

Rachel Reeves made funding the NHS a priority but people working in other areas said they were disappointed

Rachel Reeves’s first budget emphasised raising taxes to help the NHS, as the health service tries to cope with huge waiting lists and an ageing population. Funding the NHS was a top priority but people in other sectors – from universities to social care – feel the budget was a missed opportunity to tackle impending crises or introduce desperately needed reforms in their areas.

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Ofcom fines GB News £100,000 for breach of impartiality rules over Sunak interview

GB News to challenge decision and watchdog will not enforce sanction until proceedings are concluded

Ofcom has fined the rightwing broadcaster GB News £100,000 for “breaking due impartiality rules” after an interview with the former prime minister Rishi Sunak earlier this year.

The media regulator said it chose to impose a fine over the programme titled People’s Forum: The Prime Minister because it considered the breach serious, and because of GB News’s track record of breaking impartiality rules.

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Reeves’s long-term spending figures almost as unrealistic as Tories’ were, IFS says – UK politics live

Institute for Fiscal Studies says budget ‘looks like the same silly games’ as seen under the Conservatives

Rachel Reeves is now being interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

She is being interviewed by Ed Balls, the former Labour shadow chancellor who is now a TV presenter. He asks her to confirm that workers will end up losing out because of the employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) increase.

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Rachel Reeves may have to find more money to fix public services, says IFS

Institute for Fiscal Studies says budget allows for rise in public service spending this year and next, but not thereafter

Rachel Reeves could be forced to find more money to fix public services after her budget made a start at reversing the “unrealistic” and irresponsible spending plans of the Conservatives, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.

Britain’s leading experts on the government’s finances said the chancellor’s tax measures on Wednesday had allowed for a substantial short-term increase in public service spending this year and next, but not thereafter.

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Ed Davey: care sector will be ‘pushed to brink’ by national insurance hike and should be exempt

Lib Dem leader says rise in employer’s contribution risks worsening NHS crisis

The Liberal Democrats have called on the government to exempt the social care sector from the increase in national insurance in Labour’s budget, as an organisation representing many smaller care providers warned that the impact would be substantial.

In the biggest fiscal measures of Wednesday’s budget, raising an additional £25bn a year by the end of the parliament, Rachel Reeves announced an increase of 1.2 percentage points on the national insurance paid by employers, with the salary threshold at which this begins falling from £9,100 a year to £5,000.

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Budget 2024: what the UK papers said about Rachel Reeves’ statement

Headlines featured numerous ‘nightmare’ allusions for budget delivered the day before Halloween

After Rachel Reeves‘ first budget as chancellor, which included £40bn in tax rises, newspaper headlines in the UK featured “nightmare” and “horror show” allusions as it came a day before Halloween.

The Financial Times’ front page featured a picture of smiling Reeves headlined “Reeves unveils £40bn budget tax rise”. The paper reported the chancellor’s aims of fixing public services, and the “broken” finances, saying businesses and the wealthy would “bear bulk” of the “heaviest fiscal burden” in a generation.

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The budget: Labour returns to tax and spend – Politics Weekly UK

Rachel Reeves has finally laid out Labour’s spending plans in the party’s first budget in almost 15 years. The Guardian’s John Harris is joined by political editor Pippa Crerar and political correspondent Kiran Stacey to discuss the fallout

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Reeves accused of betraying small family firms with inheritance tax rises

Chancellor also criticised for letting the very rich off the hook with a lower than expected rise in capital gains tax

Tax rises aimed at inherited wealth are at risk of backfiring, after the chancellor was accused of betraying small family businesses while letting private equity bosses off the hook.

Labour’s first budget in 14 years included measures to close inheritance tax (IHT) loopholes and press ahead with scrapping the controversial non-dom tax status, as well as levying higher taxes on private jet flights.

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OBR says budget unlikely to lift economic growth over next five years

Forecaster says extra spending revealed by Rachel Reeves will give only a short-term lift to economy

Labour has embarked on a “large, sustained increase in spending, tax and borrowing”, according to the government’s economic forecaster, as it judged that Labour’s first budget for 15 years is unlikely to increase economic growth over the next five years.

Assessing Rachel Reeves’s policies, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the economy would expand at the same rate as predicted in March by the end of the parliament, despite a £70bn-a-year rise in spending.

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Labour wants to reverse decline – but with a big budget comes a big risk

The government knows cynical voters will need to see tangible change in public services and to feel better off

At the final political cabinet before Rachel Reeves delivered her first budget this week, ministers were presented with internal party research on what the public was expecting.

In the months since the general election, they had been fed a regular diet of gloomy warnings about the state of the economic inheritance and, more recently, high levels of pre-budget news coverage, so it was firmly on their horizon.

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Chancellor announces £22.6bn cash injection for NHS in England

Rachel Reeves hails biggest increase ‘outside of Covid’ since 2010 but health experts say patients may not feel impact

The NHS in England is to receive a £22.6bn cash injection over two years, the chancellor has announced, in what she called the biggest spending increase outside Covid since 2010. But health experts said patients may not feel the impact as much of the increase would be absorbed by pay rises and higher care costs.

Announcing the “down payment” on the government’s 10-year plan for the NHS, due in spring 2025, Rachel Reeves said the NHS was the nation’s “most cherished public service” and that the extra funding would help the government cut waiting lists.

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Wednesday briefing: Five key messages that will define the budget

In today’s newsletter: Labour has told two stories about Rachel Reeves’ budget. Will it be an end to austerity – or an acceptance of “the harsh light of fiscal reality”?

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Good morning. There will be no triumphalism, no big giveaways and certainly no rabbits out of hats: this, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been at pains to tell us, is going to be a very grownup budget. And even though Reeves will promise today that “the prize on offer is immense”, we might also therefore expect it to be a painful one. Since the entire thing appears to have been briefed out in advance over the last few weeks, nobody can say they haven’t been warned.

In a way, it feels like two budgets: the optimism and ambition of a minimum wage rise, a major boost for the NHS, and significant new investment in infrastructure; and a bleaker story about misleading pledges, limited ambitions, and the biggest set of tax increases in budget history.

UK news | The suspect charged with the murder of three girls in Southport is to be separately prosecuted on suspicion of possessing terrorist material and producing ricin, a powerful poison, police have said. Axel Rudakubana is due to appear in court on Wednesday.

US election | Kamala Harris urged American voters to elect a “new generation of leadership” in a speech at the same place Donald Trump spoke on January 6 almost four years ago. Likening her opponent to a “petty tyrant”, Harris told the crowd: “Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list … I will walk in with a to-do list.”

Middle East | Israel is not addressing the “catastrophic humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, the US envoy to the UN has said, ahead of a deadline for the Israelis to improve the situation or face potential restrictions on US military aid. The warning came as Gaza’s civil defence agency said 93 people had been killed in an airstrike on a crowded block of flats.

Conservatives | Britain’s former colonies should be thankful for the legacy of empire, Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick has said. Jenrick’s comments, which follow an agreement among Commonwealth leaders that “the time has come” to discuss reparations, were condemned as “an obnoxious distortion of history”.

Mexico | A team of researchers have stumbled on a lost Maya city of temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir, all hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle. The discovery was made possible by the use of laser mapping techniques in an area previously ignored by archaeologists.

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‘Waiting to die’: Layla Moran raises plight of NHS surgeon who fears for parents in Gaza

Exclusive: Surgeon who treated Lib Dem MP has worked for NHS for 20 years and grew up in the Jabaliya camp

In April, Layla Moran was admitted into hospital for sepsis. For a while, doctors thought antibiotics would clear the infection but it soon became clear she needed surgery. While recovering, a surgeon told her he had removed her appendix. “He told me his name and I was like, ‘Hold on, where are you from?’”

Like Moran, Mohammad is Palestinian. The NHS surgeon grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and has worked for the health service for 20 years. Moran, the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, had to remain in hospital for an extra week. During that time, the pair got to know each other.

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Reeves to promise ‘wealth and opportunity for all’ in major tax-raising budget

Having announced minimum wage boost, chancellor to say she can spare working people from tax rises

The UK’s national minimum wage is to rise by a higher than expected 6.7% next year, Rachel Reeves has announced before a multi-billion pound tax-raising budget designed to act as the springboard for a decade of national renewal.

Insisting that the increase to £12.21 in the pay floor marks a significant step in Labour’s plan to support the low paid, the chancellor will also say she can spare working people from the tax increases intended to plug the hole in the public finances and avoid a fresh wave of found of public spending cuts.

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NHS will not be turned around in one budget, says Wes Streeting – UK politics live

Health secretary says measures to be announced on Wednesday would ‘arrest the decline’ amid significant NHS reform

Kemi Badenoch, who is the bookies’ favourite to be the next Conservative leader, has told Times Radio that the contest is poised “neck and neck”.

Interviewed by Kate McCann, Badenoch told listeners:

People are tired of the party looking like it is not out working for the people out there. That is what I want to bring: integrity, and a focus on conviction and conservative values.

There is something very significant that is going on, we are picking a leader of the opposition. People have a choice.

This is a sacrifice, because I worry about the direction of the country.

I worry about a lot of decisions we make, and us not being honest with the public about the serious trade-offs that are going to be required, and not saying enough about how the world is becoming a more dangerous place.

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Former British colonies owe ‘debt of gratitude’, says Robert Jenrick

Tory leadership candidate wades into reparations debate, arguing empire brought democratic institutions

Britain’s former colonies should be thankful for the legacy of empire, not demanding reparations, according to the Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick.

In comments that were described by a Labour MP as “deeply offensive”, the former minister said countries that were part of the empire “owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them” in the form of legal and democratic institutions.

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Ex-Tory MP reprimanded for ‘brazen’ sexual misconduct

Parliamentary watchdog rules Aaron Bell ‘abused his position of power’ by touching woman in Commons bar

A former Conservative MP has been reprimanded for “brazen and drunken” sexual misconduct in one of parliament’s bars.

Aaron Bell, who was the Tory MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme until July, was found by a parliamentary watchdog to have “abused his position of power” by touching a woman “on her left thigh, waist and bottom inappropriately and without her consent”.

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Mike Amesbury urged to resign as MP after ‘bridge row’ altercation

Witness reportedly says Runcorn and Helsby MP and second man were arguing about temporary bridge closure

The Labour MP who punched a constituent in the early hours of Saturday morning has been urged to resign, as it was reported that the pair rowed over the closure of a local bridge.

Mike Amesbury was suspended from the party over the weekend and has had the whip withdrawn after videos emerged of the altercation in Frodsham, in his constituency in Cheshire.

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Lindsay Hoyle criticises chancellor Rachel Reeves for early disclosure of budget details – UK politics live

Speaker of the House of Commons says it is ‘evident’ Reeves made significant policy announcements in the media, rather than parliament

Jeremy Corbyn and the independent alliance of MPs have issued a letter ahead of the budget with five things they are asking Chancellor Rachel Reeves to implement.

Saying “We have the means to end poverty, we just need the political will”, Corbyn listed five priorities:

Scrap the two-child benefits cap

Reverse cuts to winter fuel

Tax wealth

Protect welfare

Invest in a greener future

It is a national scandal that 4.2 million children and 2.1 million pensioners are living in poverty in the sixth richest country in the world.

You have previously told the British public to prepare for “difficult decisions” to repair this nation’s finances.

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‘Cock-up with the comms’: how Labour announced five non-existent freeports

Erroneous announcement traced back to briefing note prepared by Treasury officals, ahead of PM’s Samoa trip

When Keir Starmer announced a shake-up in his No 10 operation last month he hoped to put an end to the missteps of his first few months in office. But an embarrassing error by Downing Street this weekend demonstrates how many pitfalls there are for a new government still learning the ropes.

In a press release on Friday, Downing Street said five new freeports would be announced in the budget. The Guardian and other outlets covered the news, which was given first to reporters who had travelled with Starmer to Samoa for the Commonwealth summit. Both the prime minister and his aides answered questions on the policy they had unveiled.

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