Tax & Spend
Labour’s £10 Billion Crisis Bill Just the First Fiscal Challenge
- Public sector pay, prisons and fuel duty pose spending threat
- New chancellor Rachel Reeves to leave tough decisions to 2025
Britain’s Labour Party is back in government for the first time since 2010 and has promised to hit the ground running with its plan to fix the economy. First it needs to find the money.
On some problems, incoming Prime Minister Keir Starmer may try to play for time by pushing out big decisions to next year. But many crises are so acute there’ll be no choice but to tackle them immediately. In particular, a series of tricky short-term decisions await on public sector pay, fuel duties, and healthcare and prison funding.