Coffee House Shots

This afternoon, Rachel Reeves made good on her promise to deliver only one fiscal set piece per calendar year by announcing what is widely being considered a Budget... this precedes a spending review in the summer and an actual Budget in the autumn. The headline is that the Chancellor had to find £15 billion in spending cuts to restore her headroom and keep within her own ‘ironclad’ fiscal rules. This comes after the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) confirmed that the £9.9 billion margin she left herself in the autumn has disappeared. The OBR has also halved its growth projections – bleak news for the government.Among the announcements: further welfare cuts after the OBR was not satisfied with the original package; some ‘final adjustments’ to Universal Credit, with the standard allowance rising from £92 per week in 2025–26 to £106 per week by 2029–30; around 10,000 civil service jobs are for the chop; defence spending will rise, at the expense of international aid; and a new target to reduce the cost of