Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks during a press conference in the Downing Street Briefing Room in Downing Street, central London, March 26, 2025, following the Spring Budget Statement. [Photo/Agencies]
The United Kingdom's finance minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, has unveiled further cuts to the country's welfare system and extra defense spending in her spring statement, delivered on Wednesday.
During her speech to parliament, Reeves said she wanted Britain to become a "defense industrial superpower", and announced an extra 2.2 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) for the sector.
Reeves also said the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, or OBR, estimated the government's welfare cuts, including reducing the support given to people with disabilities and long-term health conditions, would save 3.4 billion pounds.
However, earlier this month, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the "biggest shake-up in a generation" of what he called a "fundamentally broken welfare system", saying that new measures would save up to 5 billion pounds over the next five years.
The Financial Times quoted an anonymous source who had been told about preparations for the statement and last-minute adjustments, who said "it all looks like a shambles … it has been pretty chaotic".
Ruth Curtice, a former director of fiscal policy at the Treasury, said it was not unusual for there to be some give and take in calculations, and for changes to be made quite late in the drafting process.
"What is unique in this case is the government announced the changes in the House (of Commons) before knowing what the OBR thought they would be worth," she said. "That seems an odd way to make policy."
The British Medical Journal said cuts to sickness and disability benefits, particularly raising the qualification requirement for payments known as personal independence payments, would be "unlikely to increase employment rates" and that past evidence suggested they may impact recipients' mental health.
"There is now substantial evidence that cuts to social security since 2010 have fundamentally harmed the health of the UK population," added Gerry McCartney, a professor in wellbeing economy at the University of Glasgow.
"Implementing yet more cuts will therefore result in more premature deaths."
Reeves has been further cornered by "non-negotiable" restrictions on government borrowing and debt that she imposed on herself last October, in the run-up to the first budget of the government that was elected in July 2024.
Helen Miller, deputy director of research at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told the BBC Reeves had only left herself "a tiny margin" in the budget.
"At that point in time, you could have said 'don't do that — give yourself a bigger margin' would have been a sensible thing to do," she said.
