Badenoch says Healey’s budget will be worse than Reeves’s if he doesn’t slash spending – UK politics live

Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, was the government voice in the broadcasting studios this morning. Asked on the Today programme if she favoured the plans the Alan Milburn youth unemployment review is expected to recommend, cutting some benefits for young people in return for more focus on employment support, Rayner replied: What we’re not doing is arbitrary cuts.

Referring to Milburn and Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, she went on: I am cheering them on because I don’t believe that having over a million children without any prospects of being in training or in employment is something that this country should accept.

Asked what she would say if Milburn said certain levels of certain benefits should be cut, Rayner replied: Well, again, what I’m saying is that what Alan Milburn is saying himself, is that we have to create opportunities for young people to get into employment, and it’s too difficult for some of these young people.

Criminals including killers and sex offenders detained in hospital will no longer receive benefits under proposals called for by victims’ families, the Press Association reports. PA says: The government confirmed the move to end so-called “double provision” which enables offenders to claim hundreds of pounds a month for living costs while receiving NHS psychiatric treatment.

Regulations laid in parliament today seek to close the loophole and prevent serious criminals receiving up to £800 a month in universal credit over several years, saving an estimated tens of millions of pounds annually. The government said the confirmation follows engagement with victims’ families and experts as part of its plan to “put fairness back of the heart of the welfare system”.

The new regulations are expected to come into force early next year following parliamentary approval. Parents of Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley Kumar, who were killed by Valdo Calocane in Nottingham in 2023, welcomed the announce

According to extracts from her speech briefed overnight, Kemi Badenoch will argue later that John Healey needs to slash spending in the budget because UK government borrowing costs are too high. She will say: Britain’s 30-year gilt yields are now above 6% - their highest level since 1998. That means every pound we borrow is already costing us £2 in less than 12 years.

It is true the wars in Ukraine and Iran are pushing these rates up around the world. But they are no more Labour’s fault than they were ours when the war in Ukraine started. However, the UK is paying more to borrow than anyone else in the G7. We are paying over a percent more than Greece and Spain. We are paying nearly 2% more than Germany.

The whole argument on defence spending would go away if our interest rates reduced. This is why we need to live within our means. She will also argue that the spending reductions included in Labour’s plans for the final years of the decade are not credible. Last week the IMF praised th

Here is Jessica Elgot’s story on John Healey ruling out raising capital gains tax in the budget.

Good morning. John Healey, the chancellor, is delivering his first budget a week tomorrow, and this morning there are two news developments that will help to frame the way it is received. The most important is on the front page of the Times, where Steven Swinford has a story firming up that has already been hinted that: that Healey has decided not to raise capital gains tax in the budget.

This is significant because a capital gains tax hike was for a while seen as the government’s preferred money-raising ploy, not least because several senior figures in the cabinet were lobbying for one earlier this year. But now it is off the table, according to Swinford.

He says: Senior allies of Andy Burnham, including several cabinet ministers, have been pressing for a rise in capital gains tax on the sale of second homes, shares and other assets to help repair the public finances. However, the chancellor has ruled this out after warnings that it could ultimately cost the government money if wealth

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