David Mitchell

🚨 SUMMARY: Rachel Reeves' Spending Review 🧑‍⚕️ NHS & Health – NHS spending will increase by 3% annually over the next 3 years, delivering an extra £29bn a year, including £10bn for digital and tech upgrades 🏠 Housing: – £39bn invested in social housing in England over 2026–2036, nearly doubling the current annual funding from £2.3bn to £3.9bn 🏫 Education: - Core schools budget in England to go up by £4.5bn a year by 2029, plus £2.3 bn/year for fixing classrooms and £2.4bn to rebuild 500 schools - £370m for school-based nurseries and £555m for children’s social care -£1.2 bn over three years for apprenticeships & post-school training - Free school meals will be extended to around 500,000 more children with parents on Universal Credit, costing £1bn out of the £4.5bn schools budget increase by 2029 - Extra £615m this year to partially fund a 4% pay rise for teachers in England, with schools expected to fund a quarter of the rise through "improved productivity" via AI - Universities and high-tech industries will get a boost in research and development, with it rising to £22bn per year during Spending Review 🤖 AI: - £2bn for AI action plan to support "home-grown AI" 🪖 Defence, Crime and Justice: - £11bn real-terms rise in defence spending - £15bn for nuclear warhead programme - £7bn for military housing and £6bn for munitions - £280m/year to tackle small boats and £400m/year for asylum system reforms, with a promise to end use of hotels by 2029 - Police spending to rise by an average of 2.3% per year in real terms - £7bn allocated until 2029 to help build 14,000 new prison places in England and Wales by 2031 - £700m/year for probation reforms 📈 Transport, Energy & Environment: - £15.6bn for local transport in English city regions for 2027 and 2031 - £2.3bn for other regional transport projects - £2.5bn for East-West Rail (Oxford–Cambridge) - Upgrades confirmed for Cardiff Central, TransPennine Route, and Midlands Rail Hub – Plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail to be set out in the coming weeks - £3 cap on single bus fares in England extended until March 2027 - Nuclear: £14.2bn for Sizewell C nuclear plant, £2.5bn for small modular reactors, and £9.4bn for Scottish carbon capture – Treasury to update the rules used to evaluate proposed infrastructure projects 🫂 Community: - Funding for up to 350 communities, prioritising deprived areas, to improve parks, youth facilities, and tackle graffiti/fly-tipping - no details yet - New Growth Mission Fund to back overlooked local projects like Southport Pier and Peterborough’s sports quarter 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Devolved Nations: - Scotland: £52bn (£2.9bn extra on average, with 20% higher per capita spend than England) - Wales: £23bn (£1.6bn extra on average, also 20% more per capita) - Northern Ireland: £20bn (£1.2bn extra on average, 24% more per capita) 📈 Budgets going up (real terms): - Science & Tech: +7.4% - NHS England: +3.0% / Health & Social Care: +2.8% – Defence: +0.7% / Intelligence Services: +3.7% – Justice: +1.8% / Law Officers: +1.4% – Local Government: +1.1% / Spending Power +2.6% – HMRC: +0.7% – Education: +0.7% / Core Schools: +0.4% – Energy & Net Zero: +0.5% – Police Core Spending: +1.7% - Aslyum: +0.4% – Work & Pensions: +0.4% 📉 Budgets going down (real terms): – Foreign Office (FCDO): –6.9% – Transport: -5% – Environment & Rural Affairs: -2.7% – Business & Trade: -1.8% – Home Office: –1.7% / Housing & Communities: –1.4% – Culture, Media & Sport: -1.2% Reeves says the Spending Review was "zero-based" - meaning departmental budgets were built from scratch, not existing levels, to ensure every pound delivered value for money The Spending review lifts total capital investment by +7.3%, while everyday spending rises ~0.7% per year