Chancellor Reeves’ first budget ushers £40bn in tax rises, amid fiscal shift

Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Budget represents a significant shift in fiscal policy, addressing the UK’s considerable funding gap with £40 billion in new tax rises alongside targeted spending cuts.

As the UK’s first female Chancellor, Reeves stressed that this historic tax increase - one of the largest outside of a recession - reflected “difficult decisions” necessary to rebalance the economy and restore growth.

There will be no return to austerity, Reeves said. “But given the scale of the challenge we face in our public services” there will still be hard decisions to come."