BBC
Rachel Reeves has announced billions of pounds of spending as part of her budget.
Here, BBC correspondents analyze how much money has been pledged in key areas and where it will go.
Health: around 4% per year for the NHS
The Chancellor said the increase in funding for the NHS would be the biggest since 2010, with £22 billion to be added to the frontline and a further £3 billion for equipment and buildings for the remainder of this financial year and next. said. That may sound difficult. However, this year alone the overall health budget is over £190 billion.
The NHS accounts for a large part of this. It is not clear how this funding will be distributed between this year and next. But after inflation, that would likely mean an annual increase of nearly 4%.
This is essentially in line with historical averages and is certainly up from the 2010s. However, it remains to be seen what impact it will have. Some will definitely see pay rises, including a 22% increase for junior doctors.
Winter is just around the corner, and hospitals have been warning us for months against over-stretching. But the government hopes there will be enough surplus left over to make a dent in hospitals’ backlogs.
40,000 additional appointments and surgeries are promised per week. The problem facing governments is that additional funding does not necessarily translate into additional treatment.
Over the past five years, the budget has increased by nearly a fifth after accounting for inflation. However, the number of patients starting treatment increased by only 3%.
Education: an economic bandaid
A major financial band-aid has just been applied to the unfolding crisis in the UK education system, with an extra £1 billion of funding for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). is.
To put this into context, spending on SEND has increased by 58% over the past decade, reaching £10.7 billion a year in the UK. Despite these recent cash increases, the National Audit Office, which examines the value of public funds, claims the system is broken and financially unsustainable without reform.
The council has an annual budget deficit of more than £4bn and the deal is due to expire in 2026, so there is an immediate crisis looming. Families are reporting longer wait times amid efforts to cut spending. So today’s cash buys time to keep the system going without solving long-term problems.
The £1 billion for SEND comes from an overall increase in core spending on schools of £2.3 billion, allowing the government to say real spending per pupil will increase. After years of collapsing school buildings making headlines, the amount of capital investment allocated to maintenance, replacing school buildings and installing new nurseries in primary schools has increased to £6.7bn.
Transport: Motorists reveal the winner
Rachel Reeves today said raising fuel tax was the “wrong choice for working people”. She defied expectations that she would reverse the 5p cut introduced by the last Conservative government. As a result, motorists are the clear winners in this year’s budget.
She has pledged to invest £500m in the road network. “Potholes are an important reminder of our failure to invest as a nation,” she says.
The Chancellor also pledged £1.3 billion to improve transport links, including cash for the West Midlands Underground extension and funding for new West Yorkshire trams in Leeds and Bradford.
She cited areas such as Crewe, earmarked £650m for local transport investment to improve connectivity, and pledged funding to improve rail in the north. He said the government would implement a TransPennine upgrade aimed at fully electrifying regional services by the end of the year.
The Government’s plans to end the £2 cap on bus fares for most one-way journeys within the UK were also confirmed. Mr Reeves announced £151m would be spent on a new £3 bass cap in England from 1 January to 31 December 2025.
The Government also announced a 4.6% rise in England’s regulated rail fares and a £5 rise in the price of most rail cards. The news was not announced in the budget speech, but instead in the Treasury’s budget document.
