Rachel Reeves

The Tories do not want to hear what they did to schools like mine, but I will tell them. Textbooks were rationed, libraries closed and kids herded into portacabins in the playground. I came into politics to change that. The money that I allocated at the spending review will fix the crumbling classrooms that the Conservatives left behind, and build the schools they promised but never delivered. Today, thanks to representations from my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) and for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards), I will provide £5 million for libraries in secondary schools, building on the £10 million commitment to ensure that every primary school has a school library within this Parliament. Thanks to representations from my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) and for Luton North (Sarah Owen), I am providing £18 million to improve and upgrade playgrounds across England. Let there be no doubt that this Government are on the side of our kids and will back their potential. I will not allow the legacies of Conservative neglect to stain our society. Last year, I made changes to the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme to ensure that its members receive the fair pensions that they are owed. This year, with thanks to the Minister for Pensions for all his work on this subject, I can go further. I have heard representations from Labour coalfield MPs, including my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (Jo White), for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery), for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) and for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), and I can today announce that I will transfer the investment reserve fund of the British Coal staff superannuation scheme to its members, so that the men and women who worked in our coal industry get a fair deal in their retirement, too. And there is more. Having heard representations from my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Sean Woodcock) and for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), I will index for inflation on pensions accrued before 1997 in the pension protection fund and the financial assurance scheme, so that people whose pension schemes became insolvent—no fault of their own—no longer lose out as a result of inflation. Last year, I also provided funding to compensate the victims of the infected blood scandal, after the previous Government failed to budget for the costs of compensation. This year, I have listened to representations from my hon. Friends the Members for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) and for Edinburgh South West. I thank the Minister for Employment for her representations over many years on this subject. As a result, I will exempt all payments from the infected blood scheme from inheritance tax, regardless of the circumstances in which those payments are passed down. That is how we should be spending taxpayers’ money: on dealing with injustices and building strong public services, not on waste and inefficiency. At the spending review, I set out an ambitious target for £14 billion of efficiencies per year by 2029. I am grateful to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for driving that work forward, realising savings through artificial intelligence and automation, and by scrapping NHS England and reducing back-office staff by 18,000. At this Budget, I will find a further £4.9 billion of efficiencies by 2031, by getting rid of police and crime commissioners, cutting the cost of politics and local government, and selling Government assets that we no longer have any use for. These savings will be required across Government, but for our national health service, I will invest all those savings back into the care that people rely on—more nurses, more GPs and more appointments, restoring the services that faltered under years of Conservative decline and investing in the future of our national health service. Today, I am announcing £300 million of investment in technology to improve patient service, and 250 new neighbourhood health centres, expanding more services into communities so that people can receive treatment outside hospitals and get better, faster care where they live. More than 100 of those centres will be delivered by 2030, including in Birmingham, Truro and Southall. The Labour party founded our national health service, and we will renew our national health service. I will take the same approach for defence spending that I take for NHS spending, reinvesting savings back into our national security. In our age of insecurity, Britain will continue to stand with our allies, working in collaboration to secure a sustainable ceasefire for Ukraine, and maintaining our commitment to NATO, with the UK set to spend 2.6% of GDP on defence by April 2027. The public rightly expects that we stamp out fraud, error and waste, and put that money to good use in our schools, hospitals and other frontline services. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already announced that she will claw back excess profits from the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, as we phase out the use of those hotels entirely. And we will consult on reforms to indefinite leave to remain and access to taxpayer-funded benefits. The introduction of digital ID will break the link between illegal migration and illegal working, and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the fair work agency will crack down on the illicit businesses that blight our high streets and undercut legitimate firms, enforcing the minimum wage, investigating dodgy businesses and increasing scrutiny of the gig economy, as well as tracking down fraudulent business owners who vanish without paying their taxes. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) and for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) for their representations on this subject. I will take further steps to prevent and track down unpaid tax. Together, these reforms will raise nearly £10 billion a year by 2030, including through new powers for HMRC to pursue the promoters of tax avoidance schemes. I am building on our successful use of targeted checks on welfare claims to root out fraud and error and to prevent public money from being paid to people who are not entitled to it. I thank Tom Hayhoe, the covid corruption commissioner, for his work in helping to chase down nearly £400 million from dodgy pandemic spending and contracts. Tory contracts handed out by Tory Ministers to Tory peers and Tory friends—[Interruption.] That money belongs in our schools, in our hospitals—[Interruption.]