Spending review latest: Reeves to announce £39bn affordable homes plan to ‘turn the tide on housing crisis’

Nigel Farage has defended his party after new figures showed they managed to raise less than half as much as the Conservative Party in donations in the first quarter of 2025.

Asked about the donation figures, which showed Reform raised £1.5m to the Tories’ £3.6m, the Reform leader accused Labour and the Conservatives of having relied on their ability to hand out peerages to bankroll their parties for decades.

He said: “Is it easy to raise big money in politics? It’s not … because I have not got any peerages to give out. The honours system is corrupted beyond belief, we don’t have any gongs to give out.”

Mr Farage went on to stress he is confident he is building relationships with the donors Reform needs, while stressing that the bulk of its revenue comes from supporters giving between £25 and £50.

The Tories hit out at Reform after new electoral data showed they raised less than half as much as the Conservatives in the first three months of the year, saying Nigel Farage’s party had “failed to secure the donations they claimed were coming” and had a “fantasy approach to finances”.

The Conservatives said Reform UK party sources in January “claimed a dinner in Mayfair had secured over £1m in pledges, yet there is no evidence in the latest Electoral Commission figures that support this”. According to the figures, Reform raised £1.5m compared with £3.6m raised by the Tories.

The Tories also pointed to figures which show 42 per cent of Reform UK’s donations during the three months rely on £613,000 from deputy leader Richard Tice’s company.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will outline tight spending controls for most departments in a move likely to fuel concern over real-terms cuts.

While the NHS, education and defence are expected to see spending rises, other areas – including parts of the Home Office – are facing tighter budgets.

Policing is reportedly in line for a funding boost, but this could come at the expense of cuts elsewhere in the department.

Sources close to London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan have voiced concerns that the capital is being overlooked in the review.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that raising NHS funding by more than 2.5 per cent could lead to further tax rises or cuts elsewhere in the autumn budget.

Despite the pressure, Ms Reeves will defend her choices, saying: “I have made my choices. In place of chaos, I choose stability. In place of decline, I choose investment. In place of retreat, I choose national renewal.”

Labour’s fiscal rules remain in place, including its manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT.

The government will commit £39 billion over the next 10 years to fund affordable housing, in what it has billed as the biggest investment in a generation.

As part of her spending review, chancellor Rachel Reeves will set out plans to almost double annual investment in affordable homes to £4 billion by 2029/30, compared to £2.3 billion a year between 2021 and 2026.

The announcement is designed to help meet Labour’s promise to build 1.5 million homes by the time of the next election.

A government source said: “We’re turning the tide against the unacceptable housing crisis in this country with the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation.”

The funding is expected to sit alongside previously announced plans, including £15.6 billion for transport upgrades in England’s city regions and £16.7 billion for new nuclear projects such as Sizewell C.

The NHS is unlikely to meet Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to treat 92 per cent of patients within 18 weeks, despite a promised £30 billion budget boost, according to a report.

According to internal Department of Health modelling seen by The Times, the NHS is only on track to reach 80 per cent by the end of the parliament.

Officials told the newspaper the 92 per cent target is only achievable through “implausible” assumptions, including sharp drops in referrals and discouraging follow-up appointments.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to promise a real-term funding increase of 2.8 per cent annually – below the long-term average of 3.6 per cent on which NHS workforce plans are based.

The NHS is currently treating only 60 per cent of routine cases within 18 weeks, and there are doubts it will hit the interim goal of 65 per cent by next March, according to The Times.

With the waiting list at 7.4 million, NHS England believes it must fall below 4 million to meet the pledge – requiring a near-tripling of monthly reductions since Labour took office.

The Conservatives have received twice as much money from donors as Reform in the first three months of this year, even as they sink in the polls.

The financial backing will come as a boost to the under-pressure Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, days after her party dropped to fourth place in a major poll.

Ms Badenoch’s party took in £3.4m, Reform £1.5m, Keir Starmer’s party £2.4m and the Liberal Democrats £1.5m, the Electoral Commission statistics show.

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Rachel Reeves will unveil her long-awaited spending review on Wednesday, pledging to “invest in Britain’s renewal” through £113 billion of funding made possible by looser borrowing rules.

The chancellor is expected to outline major increases in public spending on the NHS, defence and education, arguing that the new investment is only possible because of the “stability” she introduced after the autumn budget.

“The priorities in this spending review are the priorities of working people,” Ms Reeves will say.

“To invest in our country’s security, health and economy so working people all over our country are better off.”

She will also announce reforms to the Treasury’s so-called “green book” – the rules that determine which areas receive public investment – in a bid to shift funding away from London and the South East and drive growth in other parts of the UK.

In our latest Politics Explained piece, The Independent’s associate editor Sean O’Grady writes:

It would be an exaggeration to claim the nation eagerly awaits the invention of “Badenomics” but Conservatives are certainly impatient with Kemi Badenoch’s apparent inability to create a narrative on the economy, land blows on a weakened Labour government, or compete with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on a key electoral issue.

This week’s Labour announcements on winter fuel payments and the spending review offer some prime opportunities to “punch through”.

And what do the Tories say about the spending review?

Badenoch’s line is that there would not be a black hole in public finances if they’d won the last election, and taxes would be lower. The latter part is true, but equally a hypothetical Tory government would now be imposing an even more painful squeeze on social security and public services, to the point where the numbers would simply not be credible, leading to strikes.

Voters sensed this unreality last July, and as time passes the Tories will have to come up with credible plans of their own rather than relying on Jeremy Hunt’s pre-election claims.