Spending Review

Renewing Britain: My Thoughts on the 2025 Spending Review 

Last week, I was out with Councillor Saddak Miah for Garretts Green, chatting to residents about Wednesday’s Spending Review and what they felt it meant for our community.

I felt that the Chancellor delivered a Spending Review that is looking to rebuild Britain with clarity, ambition, and purpose. Here’s why:

1. Defining National Priorities: Security, Health, Energy

At the core lies a 2.3% real-term uplift across departmental budgets. This is not tokenism—it is a statement of intent. National security takes centre stage: defence spending rises to 2.6% of GDP by 2027, with ambition in the wings to reach 3% in the next Parliament. Intelligence services will see real term increases of £600 million, reinforcing our capacity to protect Britain from evolving threats.

2. A Health Service Finally Funded for Growth

The NHS emerges as the clear winner, with a guaranteed 3% annual real‑terms uplift, translating to around £29 billion extra by 2028. This surge in resource funding, along with a £2.3 billion boost in capital investment, gives us a real shot at cutting waiting lists, expanding community care, and backing technological upgrades across the service.

3. Schools, Skills, and Social Equity

Education gets its moment: £4.7 billion more a year by 2028, and over £2 billion dedicated to school buildings and rebuilding more than five hundred schools, paving the way for real transformation in SEND and early years. Free school meals for households on Universal Credit alone will lift 100,000 children out of poverty, reaffirming our stance that talent should never be limited by circumstance.

4. Housing and Local Government: Building Communities

This is the most radical housing investment in 50 years: £39 billion over the decade for social and affordable homes. Meanwhile, local authorities will see their core spending power grow by around 3.1% per year, enabling councils to revive public services and tackle local priorities head-on.

5. Energy Security & Net‑Zero: Powering the Future

The UK is finally getting serious about home-grown clean power. The Spending Review underwrites major projects: £14.2 billion for Sizewell C, support for small modular reactors, carbon capture initiatives, and full deployment of Great British Energy—a government venture to generate 8 GW of renewables by 2030.

6. A Vision Rooted in Realism

We hear concerns—will this lead to higher taxes? Possibly. But this bold blueprint is framed within strict fiscal rules and funded sustainably. It leans on efficiencies already baked into departmental planning, funded giveaways.

7. The Bigger Picture: Renewal, Not Austerity

This is a Spending Review that rejects austerity not with rhetoric, but with real cash, across every community in Britain. From NHS waiting rooms to rural schools, from our defence capacity to local infrastructure—this is Labour at its progressive, pragmatic best.

In short: Labour is not just promising change—we are funding it. With clarity on spending priorities, investment-led growth, and national renewal at stake, this is the moment to show voters that government can and must deliver.

We know the road ahead will not be easy. But finally, Britain is back on the move. And it is a Labour Government leading the way.