Today, Rachel Reeves blamed “global uncertainty” as she announced swingeing cuts to welfare and other public spending designed to plug a fiscal hole caused by soaring borrowing costs and sluggish economic growth.
The chancellor told the Commons that the UK’s growth forecast for this year had been halved from 2% to 1% by the Treasury watchdog.
Reeves set out measures in her spring statement that she said would turn a predicted £4.1bn hole in the public finances back into a £9.9bn surplus within five years. This would restore “in full” the headroom against her self-imposed fiscal rules.
List
As you can imagine, a lot of Labour MPs probably didn’t come into politics to take money away from disabled people.
Here we go, we will add more as they come out of the woodwork of the backbench…
1.
Diane Abbott said: “Austerity used to operate as cuts for ordinary people and giveaways big business and the rich. Now, it is cuts for ordinary people and a bonanza for arms’ manufacturers. But it is still austerity.”
2.
Yes, he isn’t a Labour MP anymore but…He wrote: “After 14 years of Conservative rule, we were told that austerity was over. That was a lie. A statement from The Independent Alliance on the Chancellor’s decision to abandon those in need.”
3.
John McDonnell wrote: “There are lots of statistics bandied about from the Spring Statement but this is one of the starkest for me. The government’s own department of Work and Pensions has shown that the benefit cuts for disabled people will push 250,000 people into poverty.”
4.
Richard Burgon wrote: “This Statement contains cruel attacks on disabled people. The Government is taking the easy option of cutting support for millions of vulnerable people rather than making the wealthiest pay. I’ll vote against these cuts to disability benefits. The government must drop them.”
5.
Zarah Sultana wrote: “Disability benefit cuts will push over 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into poverty. So I asked the Chancellor —who earns over £150,000, accepted £7,500 in free clothes & took freebie tickets to see Sabrina Carpenter— if Austerity 2.0 is the “change” people voted for?”
6.
Nadia Whittome wrote: “I asked the Chancellor how a Labour government can justify cutting disability benefits – when a third of disabled people already live in poverty – instead of taxing the soaring wealth of the super-rich.”
7.
Let’s chuck in Caroline Lucas, why not?
She wrote: “Reeves is right – the world has changed. So why won’t she change her strategy to reflect it? Obsession with arbitrary fiscal rules & ruling out wealth taxes is political choice that’s causing huge pain as well as laying out the welcome mat for populist Reform UK #SpringStatement.”
8.
Kim Johnson made a brutal statement on the statement.
9.
One unknown Labour MP told LabourList: “I’m disappointed the government is ploughing ahead with the ill thought out welfare reforms that could remove vital support from those who need it most. I’m further disappointed that there is no mention of public sector pay increases, the very workers we expect to deliver change on the frontline have to continue with real terms cuts to their salaries.”
10.
More angry anonymous MPs
11.
And here is an SNP MP for good measure!
“Can the Prime Minister explain to those children how the Labour party making mum and dad poorer will lift them out of poverty?” Stephen Flynn grills Keir Starmer ahead of budget cuts in the Spring Statement.
Related: Spring Statement 2025: Key takeaways without the jargon
