Spending review 2025: The key announcements

Published

2 months ago

June 11, 2025

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Rachel Reeves is setting out her spending review in the House of Commons.

It outlines how much funding individual government departments will receive over the next three years and state infrastructure investment for the next four years.

The last spending review took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, and before that, in 2015.

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Here’s what’s been announced so far – please refresh this page for updates.

Defence

A major recipient of funds is the Ministry of Defence. Defence spending will rise from 2.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) to 2.6% by 2027. An £11bn uplift and a £600 million uplift for security and intelligence agencies.

Within that there’ll be £4.5bn of investment in munitions made in Glasgow and more than £6bn to upgrade to nuclear submarine production.

Border security

The chancellor goes onto border security, where she says funding will increase with up to £280m more per year by the end of the spending review for the new Border Security Command.

She said the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will end the costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers by 2029.

The chancellor says funding she has announced today, including from the transformation fund, will also cut the asylum backlog, see more appeal cases heard and “return people who have no right to be here”.

This will save the taxpayer £1bn a year, she says.

Energy

The biggest nuclear building programme for half a century has been announced with £14.2bn being poured into the Sizewell C nuclear power station on the Suffolk coastline.

A total of £14bn will go to the Sizewell C nuclear power plant. Another £2.5bn will be invested in a new small modular reactor programme.

A commitment to nuclear was reiterated, with £30bn allocated.

Science and technology

Moving on from energy and infrastructure, the chancellor says she wants the country’s high tech industries in Britain to continue to lead the world in the years to come.

Research and development funding will go to a record high of £22bn a year by the end of the spending period.

The government’s artificial intelligence action plan will receive £2bn.

Housing

Government funding of social and affordable housing has been allocated £39bn – which she called the “biggest cash injection into social housing in 50 years”.

She says she is providing an additional £10bn for financial investments, including to be delivered through Homes England, to help unlock hundreds of thousands more homes.

Transport

The chancellor announced £15bn for new rail, tram and bus networks across the West Midlands and the North. She’s also green-lit a new rail line between Liverpool and Manchester.

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25% of young children and pregnant women malnourished in Gaza, charity says, as PM vows to fly critical medical cases to UK

Published

9 hours ago

July 26, 2025

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25% of young children and pregnant women malnourished in Gaza, charity says, as PM vows to fly critical medical cases to UK

A charity has warned 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are now malnourished, with Sir Keir Starmer vowing to evacuate children who need “critical medical assistance” to the UK.

MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon” has reached unprecedented levels – with patients and healthcare workers both fighting to survive.

It claimed that, at one of its clinics in Gaza City, rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have trebled over the past two weeks – and described the lack of food and water on the ground as “unconscionable”.

The charity also criticised the high number of fatalities seen at aid distribution sites, with one British surgeon accusing IDF soldiers of shooting civilians “almost like a game of target practice”.

MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, said: “Those who go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distributions know that they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as they do of leaving with a bullet in their head.”

The UN also estimates that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food – the majority near the militarised distribution sites of the US-backed aid distribution scheme run by the GHF.

In a statement on Friday, the IDF had said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians”, and reports of incidents at aid distribution sites were “under examination”.

The GHF has also previously disputed that these deaths were connected with its organisation’s operations, with director Johnnie Moore telling Sky News: “We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”

Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and has accused the UN of failing to distribute it, in what the foreign ministry has labelled as “a deliberate ploy” to defame the country.

‘Humanitarian catastrophe must end’

In a video message posted on X late last night, Sir Keir Starmer condemned the scenes in Gaza as “appalling” and “unrelenting” – and said “the images of starvation and desperation are utterly horrifying”.

The prime minister added: “The denial of aid to children and babies is completely unjustifiable, just as the continued captivity of hostages is completely unjustifiable.

“Hundreds of civilians have been killed while seeking aid – children, killed, whilst collecting water. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, and it must end.”

Sir Keir confirmed that the British government is now “accelerating efforts” to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance, so they can be brought to the UK for specialist treatment.

Israel has now said that foreign countries will be able to airdrop aid into Gaza. While the PM says the UK will now “do everything we can” to get supplies in via this route, he said this decision has come “far too late”.

Last year, the RAF dropped aid into Gaza, but humanitarian organisations warned it wasn’t enough and was potentially dangerous. In March 2024, five people were killed when an aid parachute failed and supplies fell on them.

For now, Sir Keir has rejected calls to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and recognise a Palestinian state – despite more than 220 MPs signing a cross-party letter to demand he takes this step.

The prime minister is instead demanding a ceasefire and “lasting peace” – and says he will only consider an independent state as part of a negotiated peace deal.