Jeremy Hunt and John McDonnell: Our advice to Rachel Reeves

Ahead of the Spring Statement, former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell offer some counsel to Rachel Reeves.

The former Tory Chancellor advises Labour to be 'even bolder' but arch-socialist McDonnell urges more restraint. Which way will Rachel Reeves go?

LBC understands the Chancellor has made up her mind not to raise taxes next week.

Speaking on Saturday, the Chancellor implied she would neither raise taxes nor Government budgets during next week’s fiscal event.

"We can't tax and spend our way to higher living standards and better public services,” she said.

Rachel Reeves is under pressure to increase taxes or cut spending to meet the financial rules she set at the budget in October amid disappointing growth figures and higher-than-expected borrowing.

The spring statement will be laid out by the Chancellor on Wednesday, but there’s not expected to be big tax and spend changes in there.

It comes after worse-than-expected public borrowing figures yesterday piled pressure on the Chancellor again in the run-up to the fiscal event.

The UK government borrowing rose by more than expected last month to £10.7billion – around £4billion more than was predicted – wiping out any headroom she may have had.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned the Chancellor was “boxed in” by her fiscal rules, and promised not to raise taxes further, or return to austerity for public finances.

She’s repeatedly insisted her promises to not borrow for funding day-to-day public spending and to get debt falling as a share of the UK economy by 2029-30 - are "non-negotiable".

Labour MPs have been piling pressure on her to rip them up rather than slash budgets.

But ministers are concerned that the squeeze on the finances is likely to mean even greater cuts to Whitehall departments when the spending review comes around later this year.

Listen to the full show on Global Player: https://app.af.globalplayer.com/Br0x/...

#labour #ukpolitics #LBC

LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK.

Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/
Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup