Thanks for following our blog regarding a major speech by Rachel Reeves this afternoon.

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Reeves said that the Spending Review announced tomorrow will allocate investment worth £113billion.

She added that the Government is going for growth, and investing in the defence sector.

Reeves announced during her speech that she would be making available £420million for Sheffield Forgemasters.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) bought the site in 2021, and will use it to support manufacturing for defence programmes.

Plans to build a new plant at the facility, which will be operational by 2028, were approved earlier this year.

The Chancellor has admitted that high energy prices are making sections of the UK economy “uncompetitive”.

An audience member told Ms Reeves that “urgent action” was needed, particularly with regards to the the ceramics and pottery industry.

The Chancellor said: “I absolutely get the point that you make and people in this room will know that it is ceramics, it is steel, it is cement, it is agriculture, it is a whole range of sectors where energy prices are making our British businesses uncompetitive with our counterparts around Europe where energy prices for industry are lower.”

She added that the Government will publish its new industrial strategy in the coming weeks.

Ms Reeves said: “We will absolutely come forward with a plan to ensure that our intensive energy industries in the UK including the potteries industries in Stoke and other parts of the Midlands can be competitive”.

During her speech, the Chancellor hailed Labour’s employment reforms, saying they would deliver the “biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”.

She then said the extension of free school meals, which will be available from September 2026, showed the “difference a Labour government makes”.

The Chancellor announced £16.7billion will be funnelled into nuclear power projects as the country shifts away from fossil fuels.

Ms Reeves said she has signed off on £14.2billion of investment to build the new Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk, while Rolls-Royce has been named as the preferred bidder to build small modular reactors (SMRs) in a programme backed by £2.5 billion of taxpayers’ cash.

The Chancellor will use Wednesday’s spending review to allocate tens of billions of funding for major infrastructure projects over the rest of the decade.

Officials hope SMRs will be cheaper and quicker to build than traditional power plants, and projects could be connected to the grid by the mid-2030s.

Ms Reeves said: “The UK is back where it belongs, taking the lead in the technologies of tomorrow with Rolls-Royce SMR as the preferred partner for this journey.”

Reform UK is “tough on workers”, Ms Reeves has claimed.

The Chancellor said: “While Labour is levelling up workers’ rights, Nigel Farage and Reform opposed the Employment Rights Bill. While Labour is investing in our NHS, Nigel Farage and Reform want to privatise our NHS.

“And while Labour is investing in security for our nation and for our allies, Nigel Farage and Reform are not on the side of the heroic people of Ukraine, they are on Russia’s side instead.

“That is Reform. Tough on workers, tough on patients but soft on Putin.”

Ms Reeves announced during he speech that tomorrow’s Spending Review will include more than £30billion in total investment for the UK’s nuclear industry.

She said: “Taken together tomorrow’s Spending Review sets out over £30billion of investment in Britain’s nuclear-powered future.

“This Labour Government is launching a new era of nuclear power here in Britain.”

Mr Reeves said: “We are in a situation today where despite the number of people in work rising in almost every country in the world since the pandemic, people of working age out of work, economically inactive, is increasing in Britain.

“And the last Conservative government didn’t do nearly enough to support people, including people with sickness and disability challenges back into work.

“That is why we promised in the spring statement a few weeks ago to put £1 billion into supporting people into work.”

She added: “The current system that we have today is not sustainable and I want to ensure that the welfare state is there for future generations but to do that we do need to make sure that everyone who can work is given the support and the dignity that work can provide for so many people.”

The Chancellor has acknowledged that not enough people are feeling the progress Labour has made and said her spending review will be about “making working people better off”.

She said in her speech: “I know that not enough working people are yet feeling that progress, and that’s what tomorrow’s Spending Review is all about – making working people better off, investing in our security, investing in our health, investing in our economy.

“This government is going for growth because that is the best way to create jobs, boost wages, lift people out of poverty, and sustainably fund our schools and our hospitals and all the public services we rely on.

“And we’re doing things differently, because unlike the Tories, I don’t think that the only good thing that a government can do is get out of the way.”

Ed Miliband claims there is “no question” the economy has improved.

He told LBC’s Nick Ferrari: “I’m sure some of your programmes have been about some of the tax rises that the government put in place, which were necessary to stabilise the public finances.

“So absolutely, we’ve stabilised the public finances.”

Labour frontbencher Ed Miliband has claimed Rachel Reeves has restored “stability” to the economy as he defended the Chancellor.

He told LBC: “Put yourself in the Chancellor’s shoes for a second. She came into office being told by the civil service that there were massive demands that the previous government had not budgeted for, which she would have to find a way of paying for, even before she could start investing in the things she wanted to start investing in, alongside her Cabinet colleagues.

“That’s why she took a whole series of decisions. Now she is now confident that she’s created the room for manoeuvre to move the threshold on winter fuel allowance.

“But she’s not going to apologise for decisions she made when she first came into office to bring stability to the nation’s finances, which I think she’s done.”

Watch the extraordinary moment Treasury minister James Murray is skewered over claims Labour could restore the Winter Fuel Payment because the economy had improved.

Sky News host Sophy Ridge declared: “I really don’t say this lightly, but I just don’t believe that is the truth for why you’ve reversed this policy.

“You said the economy is on a firmer footing, the economy has been growing, growth forecasts have got worse since you announced the policy, debt has gone up, it’s just not true.

“Why not just hold your hands up and say ‘we got it wrong’.

Robert Jenrick has launched a scathing attack on Chancellor Rachel Reeves, asking voters exactly what they think of her.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are facing a growing backbench revolt as civil war threatens to engulf Labour.

Labour MPs seized Chancellor Rachel Reeves‘s humiliating u-turn on winter fuel payments to call for more benefits spending.

Ms Reeves’ £1.25 billion plan unveiled on Monday will see automatic payments worth up to £300 given to pensioners with an income less than £35,000 a year.

But Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, warned ministers they risked making a “similar mistake” if they tighten the eligibility criteria for personal independence payments, known as Pip.

Leeds East MP Richard Burgon also called on pensions minister Torsten Bell to “listen now” so that backbenchers can help the Government “get it right”.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves insisted she had “listened” to readers’ concerns as she reversed her hated policy to cut winter fuel payments.

It means more than three-quarters of older people will get the allowance – worth up to £300 – this winter.

While not apologising outright to pensioners who have suffered, Ms Reeves said she “understood” and had “listened to their concerns.

She claimed she was able to make the change because the economy is in a healthier position now than last July, when she swiped the allowance away within days of Labour’s general election victory.

Andrew Griffith MP, Shadow Business and Trade Secretary, said: “It is disappointing but no surprise that unemployment is up again.

“Businesses are still absorbing a £25 billion Jobs Tax but things are about to get even worse as Labour’s £5 billion unemployment bill hits businesses with higher regulation. Labour have to think again.

“Only businesses create jobs and wealth in the economy. The Conservatives under new leadership are the only Party that believe in letting businesses get on and succeed.”

Britain jobless rate surged to its highest level for nearly four years and pay growth for UK workers eased by more than expected as employers faced surging staff costs, official figures have shown.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said average regular earnings, excluding bonuses, fell sharply to 5.2% in the three months to April, from a revised 5.5% in the previous three months and the lowest since the third quarter of last year.While this is still outstripping inflation, up by 2.1% with

Consumer Prices Index inflation taken into account, it was lower than predicted, with most experts pencilling in a fall to 5.3%.

The rate of unemployment also jumped to 4.6% in the three months to April, up from 4.5% in the three months to March and the highest level since the three months to July 2021, although the ONS continues caution over the reliability of the statistic.