Key events
Reeves says the UK is the only country to be exempt from the new US steel tariffs. That is because of the work down by Jonathan Reynolds and Keir Starmer, she says.
The UK remains the only country to have done a trade deal with the US. But it has also done deals with India and the EU, she says.
Reeves says she does not accept Met chief’s suggestion spending settlement could lead to police having to ignore some crimes
Q: In the light of Mark Rowley’s comments (see 9.13am), which crimes would the government be happy for the police to ignore?
Reeves says she is increasing spending on the police in the spending review, adding: “So that’s not a choice that I would recognise.”
Reeves rules out raising taxes in autumn on same ‘scale’ as in last year’s £40bn revenue-raising budget
Q: Will you repeat the claim you made last year about last year’s budget being a once-in-a-generation tax rising event?
Yes, says Reeves.
She says she raised £40bn in the budget last year. She goes on:
I have absolutely no intention of repeating a budget on that scale again.
Reeves suggests Rayner’s proposed tax rises far less significant than those already implemented in last year’s budget
Q: What did you think of Angela Rayner’s proposals for tax rises?
Reeves says Rayner proposed tax rises worth about £3bn in total. She says in her budget last year she raised taxes by £40bn in total, which was “much more”.
(In fact, the Rayner plans would have raised more than £4bn, the leak suggested.)
Reeves says she remains committed to manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT
Q: Will you repeat your election pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT?
Reeves says she has already answered that in her reply to Carl Dinnen. (See 10.14am.) She goes on:
The commitment that we made in the manifesto not to increase the key taxes that working people pay – income tax, VAT and national insurance – are promises that we stand by. We will implement what was in our manifesto.
Q: [From Sky’s Beth Rigby] Do you accept the arguments of people like Angela Rayner and Andy Burham that some taxes will have to go up?
Reeves says she is not going to write budgets for the next four years now. But she says she has already changed the fiscal rules to allow more investment.
Reeves rejects claim spending review settlement will stop some Labour manifesto commitments being delivered
Q: [From ITV’s Carl Dinnen] Are Labour’s manifesto commitments on policing, housingn and energy at risk?
There have been reports saying the spending review settlements will mean some commitments cannot be funded.
But Reeves denies this. She replies:
We made those commitments in our manifesto and we stick to them. All of the manifesto commitments that we made were fully costed and fully funded.
Q: If you are determined to stick to your fiscal rules, will you level with people about how tough your settlement will be next week?
Reeves says she changed the fiscal rules last year, and raised taxes. Taken together, that means she can spent more on day-to-day spending and on capital spending. Overall, that means total spending will be £300bn more than what was planned by the last government, she says.
She repeats her point about, how if she were to give up the fiscal rules and let borrowinng get out of control, ordinary people would suffer.
Reeves is now taking questions.
Q: [From Manchester Evening News] What do you think of the plan for a new rail link between Manchester and Liverpool.
Reeves says today she is focusing on the mayoral settlement. She is not talking about national rail plans today. But there is more to come next week, she says.
Reeves says transport investment will make regional cities more productive, making them more like London
Reeves says she is today announcing £15.6bn in transport investment. (See 9.30am.)
And she explains why transport is so important.
Connectivity is an absolutely critical factor in unlocking the potential of towns and cities outside of London – one of the areas in which previous governments have promised most but delivered least, and that will now change.
Let me tell you why it matters.
Modern growth rests on dynamic, connected city regions, creating clusters of activity so that people can get around, communicate, share ideas, commute, find good work and earn wages that flow back into strong local economies.
The stronger transport links within cities and the towns around them create opportunity by connecting labour markets and making it easier for firms to buy and sell goods and services in different places to different people.
Labour’s strong investment in the past in strongly integrated transport systems, including in London, helps explain London’s global success and also its advantages over other UK cities.
Now we want London to succeed, but it is the lack of that infrastructure which puts England’s other great cities, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, at a disadvantage compared to their European counterparts that have this infrastructure, and it helps to explain our underperformance relative to other European economies.
If we were to increase the productivity of those second cities in the UK to match the national average, our economy today would be £86bn larger.
Reeves suggests Treasury rules being revised to encourage more government investment outside south-east
Reeves says she has also changed how the Treasury’s “green book” evaluates projects when it decides if they are worth investing in.
The Treasury green book sets the guidance for how public servants assess the value for money of government projects. It may sound dry, but it is one of the reasons why there hasn’t been enough investment in the north and the Midlands for decades.
I have heard from mayors across the country, from Andy [Burnham], but also from Steve Rotheram, the mayor of Liverpool, that previous governments have wielded the green book against them as an excuse to deny important investments in their areas and their people.
That is why, in January, I ordered a review of the green book and how it is being used to make sure that this government gives every region a fair hearing when it comes to investments.
I will publish the full conclusions of that review next week. However, I can tell you now that it will mark a new approach to decision making in government, and an end to siloed Whitehall thinking, making sure that government is taking account of the reinforcing economic effects of infrastructure investment in housing, in skills, and in jobs.
(The argument against the old rules was that they focused on potential overall gains to the UK economy, which meant that transport projects in the south-east, which would stimulate economic activity by high-earning workers, invariably seemed better value than projects elsewhere in Britain that would stimulate economic activity by workers earning less.)
