Watch as UK economists appear before parliament’s Treasury Committee on Tuesday, 1 April, to answer questions about Rachel Reeves’s spring statement.
Last week, the chancellor outlined a fresh set of cuts to government spending without raising taxes, blaming a dramatic slowdown in growth.
Ms Reeves faced a major setback in the hours before delivering her statement when the government’s official spending watchdog rejected its forecasts for how much its welfare cuts would save. That prompted the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to slash its economic growth forecast for this year from 2 per cent to 1 per cent.
She was forced to go further than expected to fall back within her self-imposed borrowing rules, so set out fresh measures to cut the government welfare bills.
Changes set out by the chancellor to previously announced welfare reforms will see the health element of universal credit cut in half for new claimants and then frozen. Elsewhere, the universal credit standard allowance will increase from £92 per week in 2025-26, to £106 per week by 2029-30. It had previously been expected to rise to £107 per week by that year.
This week, millions of households across the UK are bracing for yet another wave of price hikes, as bills for energy, water, council tax, and more increase from 1 April.
Dubbed “awful April,” these rising costs are putting even more pressure on household budgets, prompting fresh calls for government intervention.
Energy bills for millions on standard variable tariffs will rise by an average of £111 a year, while water bills in some areas will jump by nearly 47 per cent.
Council tax increases will also hit households across England, Scotland, and Wales, with some local authorities imposing hikes of almost 10 per cent. On top of this, the cost of road tax, broadband, and TV licences is also climbing.
