After only being in the job for a few weeks, new British Chancellor Rachel Reeves has set out the new Labour governments spending plans for their term in office. She clashed with her predecessor Jeremy Hunt over the record of the last Conservative government claiming that there was now a black whole in the country’s finances and this would have a drastic effect on any measures that they planned to put in place.
Ms Reeves declared that the new government had to act to fix the mess that had been created by the last Conservative government. One of the main policies which she hinted the new government would introduce was to scrap winter fuel payments for around ten million pensioners who weren’t receiving means tested benefits. Mr Hunt denied that he had made misleading statements and hidden a massive shortfall in the amount of money that the government had at it’s disposal.
The Conservatives have been becoming involved in an increasingly bitter row with the Labour party on the fact that a £22 bm whole had been uncovered in the publics finances, all this happening whilst the Conservatives stated that the country’s financial position was healthy and in better shape than it was ten years ago.
Ms Reeves said she had made “tough decisions” based on this position, which have included announcing that from this autumn, pensioners in England and Wales not on pension credit or other means-tested benefits will no longer get winter fuel payments worth between £100 and £300.
“They were not decisions I wanted to make, they were not decisions I expected to make, but when confronted with a £22bn black hole, I had to act,” she said, adding that she had “to fix the mess left by the previous government”.
There wee also accusations made that there had been a lack of decision making by the previous Conservative government when it came to their priorities on what would be more important to spend money on. This meant that many people would have been left unsupported during times when they experienced hardship and were unable to physically go in to work.
However Mr Hunt disagreed with these claims and has contacted the Cabinet Secretary to complain about the differing portrayals of the so called black whole in public finances.
Through out the Election campaign, the Conservatives have been saying that Labour plans would mean that taxes would have to rise in eighteen key areas hover Ms Reeves roundly denied this stating that many key tax areas would remain stable as not to effect how people coped in modern day society too badly.
Ms Reeves said she had made “tough decisions” based on this position, which have included announcing that from this autumn, pensioners in England and Wales not on pension credit or other means-tested benefits will no longer get winter fuel payments worth between £100 and £300.
She said she had to make the decisions because of the previous government’s “deeply irresponsible” overspending, and that Mr Hunt covered up the true state of the public finances when he was chancellor.
“They were not decisions I wanted to make, they were not decisions I expected to make, but when confronted with a £22bn black hole, I had to act,” she told the BBC, adding that she had “to fix the mess left by the previous government”.
When it came to the matter of discussing how much junior doctors or people in the NHS are paid, Ms Reeves stated that the government has also offered junior doctors in England a two-year pay deal worth 22% on average, in a bid to halt strike action. During the past few years there have been many periods when doctors have felt that they have had to take strike action in order to achieve pay restoration and receive a decent wage for the work they do.
If you’d like more information on the key measures which are in line to be introduced by the Labour government, you can find this at:
