A panicked Rachel Reeves has said she will give more details of Labour’s plans for benefits next week, well ahead of the Spring statement on 26 March.
As Labour struggles with the highest sustained government borrowing costs for decades, they are desperate to get the markets on their side by convincing them they have real plans for increasing growth and cutting spending.
So, Reeves told the Sun on Sunday that next week she will “expose how the Conservatives lost complete control of the benefits bill – with a project overspend of more than £8 billion”
Reeves went on to say that “Sun on Sunday readers will agree, as a country we cannot keep footing the bill for the spiralling numbers of people out of work.”
She added that “This is an urgent problem. It can’t be ignored. We can’t walk around it, as the Tories did. We’ve got to grip it, once and for all. That’s why we’re setting out our detailed plans before Easter.”
Reeves will be making her statement on Wednesday. It remains to be seen how much detail will actually be revealed, but we’ll publish a full account of any benefits-related content as soon as possible after Reeves’ speech.
