Chancellor Rachel Reeves expected to announce further welfare cuts in spring statement
Rachel Reeves will unveil further welfare cuts in her spring statement after being told the reforms announced last week will save less than planned, Sky News understands.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has rejected the government’s assessment that the package of measures, including narrowing the eligibility criteria for personal independence payments (PIP), will save £5bn.
Politics latest: Ex-Labour leader says Starmer ‘an enormous disappointment’
The fiscal watchdog put the value of the cuts at £3.4bn, leaving ministers scrambling to find further savings.
Ms Reeves is now expected to announce that universal credit (UC) incapacity benefits for new claimants, which were halved under the original plan, will also be frozen until 2030 rather than rising in line with inflation
As originally reported by The Times, there will also be a small reduction in the basic rate of UC in 2029, with the new measures expected to raise £500m.
A Whitehall source told Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby that it is “hard to tell how MPs will react”, as while the OBR’s assessment means fewer people will be affected by the PIP changes than thought, they “might be unhappy about the chaotic nature of it all”.
The government did not publish an impact assessment of the crackdown on benefits it announced last week, saying that would come alongside the spring statement on Wednesday.
Several Labour MPs criticised the measures as pushing more sick and disabled people into poverty, while former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called the package a “disgrace” on Tuesday and accused the government of imposing austerity on the country.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘Labour MPs are upset’
Spending cuts expected
Ms Reeves is expected to announce a large package of departmental spending cuts when she gives an update on the economy on Wednesday, potentially putting her on a further collision course with her own MPs.
Having only committed to doing one proper budget each year in the autumn, the spring statement was meant to be a low-key affair.
However, a turbulent economic climate since October means the OBR is widely expected to downgrade its growth forecasts for the UK while the government has borrowed more than previously expected.
This has wiped out the £9.9bn gap in her fiscal headroom Ms Reeves left herself at her budget last year – money she needs to make up if she wants to stick to her self-imposed fiscal rule that day-to-day spending must be funded through tax receipts, not debt, by 2029-30.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Pic: PA
The chancellor has sought to blame global factors but the Conservatives blame measures like the national insurance tax hike on employers, saying this is choking business.
Shadow chancellor Mel Stride urged Ms Reeves to “use the emergency budget” to “fix her own mistakes and end Labour’s war on enterprise”.
Ms Reeves will defend her record in the spring statement, saying she is “proud” of what Labour has achieved in its first nine months in office.
However, on the eve of the statement, polling showed the public is pessimistic about what is to come.
According to More in Common, half think the cost of living crisis will never end, while YouGov found three-quarters of people want to see a tax on the richest over spending cuts.
Ms Reeves is not expected to announce any tax hikes, having said her tax-raising budget in October was a once-in-a-parliament event.
Read more:
Chancellor can make decisions now without too much fallout
Expect different focus from Reeves at spring statement
Defence increase to ‘deliver security’
In a bid to fend off criticism, she will also announce an extra £2.2bn will be spent on defence over the next year to “deliver security for working people”.
The money is part of the government’s aim to hike defence spending to 2.5% of the UK’s economic output by 2027 – up from the 2.3% where it stands now.
Ms Reeves will insist this plan, set out by the prime minister in February, was the “right decision” against the backdrop of global instability, saying it will put “an extra 6.4bn into the defence budget by 2027”.
“This increase in investment is not just about increasing our national security but increasing our economic security, too,” she will say.
The money is coming from reductions to the international aid budget and Treasury reserves, and will be used to invest in new technology, refurbish homes for military families and upgrade HM Naval Base Portsmouth.
The University of Sussex has been fined £585,000 by the higher education regulator for failing to uphold freedom of speech.
The Office for Students (OfS) criticised the university’s policy statement on transgender and non-binary equality, saying that it could lead staff and students to “self-censor”.
The policy has a requirement to “positively represent trans people” and asserts that “transphobic propaganda [would] not be tolerated”.
Professor Kathleen Stock after being made an OBE for services to higher education. Pic: PA
The university said it will legally challenge the OfS’s decision and accused the regulator of pursuing a “politically motivated” inquiry against it that resulted in “egregious and concocted” findings.
The OfS launched its investigation after campus protests calling for the dismissal of Professor Kathleen Stock.
She left the university in 2021 after being accused of transphobia when she published a book questioning whether gender identity was more “socially significant” than biological sex.
The OfS said the University of Sussex’s policy had a “chilling effect” on Prof Stock’s views.
“Professor Stock said that she became more cautious in her expression of gender critical views as a result of the policy,” the OfS said in a statement.
“There were some views she did not feel able to express, and therefore teach, despite those views being lawful.”
Professor Sasha Roseneil, the vice chancellor at the university, said the OfS findings mean “it is now virtually impossible for universities to prevent abuse, harassment, or bullying on our campuses”.
“Under this ruling, we believe that universities would not be permitted to expect their staff and students to treat each other with civility and respect,” she said.
“The OfS is effectively decreeing libertarian free speech absolutism as the fundamental principle for UK universities. In our view, the OfS is perpetuating the culture wars.”
Prof Roseneil has claimed that the OfS did not interview anyone from the university in its three-and-a-half-year investigation and that the fine is “wholly disproportionate”.
“The behaviour of the OfS sets a dangerous precedent and constitutes serious regulatory overreach in service of a politically motivated inquiry,” she said.
She added that the investigation findings “leave universities unable to have policies to prevent abusive, bullying and harassing speech and that will perpetuate the culture wars”.
The University of Sussex
The OfS was given the power in January to issue fines where freedom of speech was not upheld at a university.
The fine issued to the University of Sussex is the largest-ever issued by the regulator, with the institution saying it’s 15 times larger than any other sanction imposed.
Read more: Controversial free-speech law delayed ‘over anti-semitism fears’
Arif Ahmed, the director for freedom of speech and academic freedom at the OfS, said that the regulator’s probe “also found deficiencies in the University of Sussex’s decision-making process, with decisions about important free speech and equality matters taken by people without the authority to do so”.
“Those decisions may not have been in the best interests of students and staff,” he said.
“Substantial monetary penalties are appropriate for the scale of wrongdoing we have found.”
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said that “free speech and academic freedom are non-negotiables in our universities”.
“If you go to university you must be prepared to have your views challenged, hear contrary opinions and be exposed to uncomfortable truths,” she said.
“We are giving the OfS stronger powers on freedom of speech so students and academics are not muzzled by the chilling effect demonstrated in this case.”
Prince Harry has said he is devastated and “in shock” to have to quit as patron of a charity he set up in honour of his mother.
Sentebale was established in 2006 to help children and young people in southern Africa, particularly those with HIV and Aids.
But the Duke of Sussex said he had been forced to step down amid a battle in the organisation between the chairwoman Dr Sophie Chandauka and the board of trustees.
He released a statement with his co-founder, Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, saying they had established the charity “in honour of our mothers”.
“With heavy hearts, we have resigned from our roles as patrons of the organisation until further notice, in support of and solidarity with the board of trustees who have had to do the same,” they said.
“It is devastating that the relationship between the charity’s trustees and the chair of the board broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation.”
Details of the row in the charity are unclear but it is reportedly over a decision to focus fundraising in Africa.
“What’s transpired is unthinkable,” the princes’ statement added.
“We are in shock that we have to do this, but we have a continued responsibility to Sentebale’s beneficiaries, so we will be sharing all of our concerns with the Charity Commission as to how this came about.”
The Duke of Sussex and Sophie Chandauka in Florida last year. Pic: PA
In her own statement, Dr Chandauka said she would not be intimidated, adding: “For me, this is not a vanity project from which I can resign when I am called to account.”
She said she had reported the trustees to the Charity Commission and that a UK court had issued an injunction to stop them removing her.
“There are people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people, and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct,” Dr Chandauka said.
She added that this was a “story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir – and the cover-up that ensued”.
Read more from Sky News:
Trump urged to fire defence secretary over war plans leak
Ex-footballer avoids jail for kicking wife in the head
A Charity Commission spokesperson said it is “aware of concerns about the governance of Sentebale”.
“We are assessing the issues to determine the appropriate regulatory steps,” a spokesperson for the commission said in a statement.
Prince Harry was inspired to start the charity after spending two months in Lesotho when he was on a gap year in 2004.
He was in the small African country – which has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV and Aids – as recently as last October.
The prince talked to young people around a campfire about the “massive difference” Sentebale was making. Last April, he was also pictured with Dr Chandauka at a charity polo match in Florida.
Five former trustees also released a statement that said resigning was “devastating” but the “result of our loss in trust and confidence in the chair of the board”.
They said they were forced to quit as they could not allow Sentebale to take on the “legal and financial burden” of a lawsuit brought by the chairwoman “to block us from voting her out after our request for her resignation was rejected”.
They added that the decision to resign was “not a choice willingly made, but rather something we felt forced into in order to look after the charity”.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports12 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway