Andrew Western MP for Stretford and Urmston
What is the Spending Review?
A Spending Review is the process the government uses to set all departments’ budgets for future years. This covers both the services the public uses every day, like the NHS, schools and transport, and how the government will invest in research, energy security and infrastructure to drive economic growth across the country.
In the same way that households budget what they spend, the government does this with public money. This is to ensure it is spent effectively.
Investing in Britain’s Renewal: Building a Stronger Future for You and Your Family
This Spending Review is all about investing in Britain’s renewal – in your security, health, and economy – so that you and your family are better off. The decisions made today have been possible due to difficult choices on tax and spending, and efforts to remove barriers to growth. Our first budget was designed to fix the foundations; now, we are investing in Britain’s renewal.
Prioritising Your Security
We are committed to keeping our country safe by prioritising your security, encompassing defence, energy security, and our borders.
- Defence Investment: We are making a £20 billion increase in defence spending and a £2 billion uplift for our security and intelligence agencies across the spending review period. Defence spending will rise to 2.6% of GDP by April 2027, representing the biggest sustained increase since the Cold War.
- Border Security: Funding for the Border Security Command, established last year with £150 million, will rise by an additional £280 million per year by the end of the spending review period. We aim to end the costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers in this Parliament and cut the asylum backlog to save the taxpayer £1 billion a year.
- Energy Security: We are investing £30 billion in the biggest rollout of nuclear power for half a century, including £14.2 billion for Sizewell C, which will support more than 10,000 jobs.
- Community Safety: We are ensuring you feel safe in your communities by increasing police spending power by an average of 2.3% per year in real terms over the spending review period.
Record Investment in Your Health
This Spending Review prioritises your health with record levels of investment in our National Health Service. This will deliver more appointments, build new hospitals, and provide new equipment for more efficient, productive, and high-quality care.
- NHS Funding Boost: We are making a record cash investment in the NHS, increasing real-terms, day-to-day spending by 3% per year for every year of this spending review. This means an extra £29 billion per year for the day-to-day running of the NHS, and an extra £4 billion of annual capital investment by the end of the spending review.
- Technology and Training: The NHS technology budget will increase by 50%, and we are providing additional funding to train thousands more GPs.
- Mental Health Support: We are providing mental health support teams to all schools in England.
Strengthening Our Economy
We are prioritising our country’s economy to ensure you and your family are better off.
- Affordable Housing: We are investing £39 billion over the next decade in a new Affordable House Plan – the biggest cash injection into social and affordable housing in a generation.
- Transport Infrastructure: We recently announced £15.6 billion of investment in transport to connect our cities and towns, alongside a fourfold increase in Local Transport Grants for other regions by the end of the parliament. This also includes £445 million for railways in Wales over ten years.
- Innovation and Jobs: We are investing in new, home-grown energy technologies, including CCUS projects in Aberdeenshire and Humberside. We are backing innovators with R&D funding rising to a record high of over £22 billion per year, along with £2 billion to back this government’s AI Action Plan. We are also providing record investment into training and upskilling our young people, with £1.2 billion a year by the end of the spending review to support over a million young people into training and apprenticeships.
- Cost of Living Support: We are extending the £3 bus fare cap until at least March 2027 to keep travel costs down. We will also deliver our manifesto commitment to upgrade millions of homes through the Warm Homes Plan, saving families and pensioners up to £600 off bills.
- Education and Children’s Services: Free school meals will be extended to over half a million more children. We are announcing almost £370 million for school-based nurseries, £555 million of transformation funding for children’s social care, investment rising to nearly £2.3 billion per year to fix crumbling classrooms, and £2.4 billion per year to continue our programme to rebuild 500 schools.
Investing Everywhere Across Britain
For too long, previous governments have ignored the potential of huge parts of the country. We are changing that.
- Fair Regional Investment: Our new Green Book will support place-based business cases, ensuring every region gets a fair hearing.
- Community Support: We are announcing additional funding to support up to 350 communities, especially those in the most deprived areas, by improving parks, youth facilities, swimming pools, libraries, and tackling graffiti and fly-tipping.
- Devolved Governments: This spending review provides the largest settlements in real terms since devolution was introduced, with £52 billion for Scotland, £22.9 billion for Wales, and £19.8 billion for Northern Ireland by 2028-9