Angela Rayner leads Cabinet revolt against Reeves’ ‘huge’ Budget cuts
The prime minister has received letters from senior ministers raising concerns about the spending cuts after a number spoke out against the measures at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.
Some departments are facing cuts of as much as 20 per cent as Ms Reeves scrambles to find £40bn of spending cuts and tax rises before the October 30 Budget.
On Thursday Whitehall’s total overall budget, known as the "spending envelope", was submitted to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) after being finalised by Downing Street.
If we ignore the political theatre and merely focus on the mechanics of it all and particularly the spider's web which is the Office for Budget Responsibility, then it is impossible to see where significant reform would come from. Government is a machine with no intention of being, in its own terms, underfunded.
The tasks the OBR has been given require us to have a close working relationship with officials in a number of Government departments – especially the Treasury, the Department for Work & Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs – in the run-up to Budgets and other fiscal events. We maintain our independence by being as transparent as we can after each forecast about our interactions with ministers and their key staff and about the reasons for the judgements we have reached.
The political squabbles are entertaining, but little else. Significant reform is not even on the table.