Rachel Reeves to give speech preparing ground for budget tax rises

Good morning. David Cameron is credited with popularising the term “pitch rolling” in Westminster, to describe the process whereby politicians prepare the public for difficult announcements by shaping the argument in advance. It is a metaphor with connotations of a gentle game of cricket, and pleasant summer afternoons.

Today Rachel Reeves is engaged in a classic piece of “pitch rolling”. But her task is more daunting. She won’t be flattening the odd bump; she has to shift some colossal PR obstacles, which is more a task for a fleet of JCB diggers.

That is because, when she delivers the budget three weeks tomorrow, she will have to fill fiscal gap reportedly as high as £30bn. That means tax rises, which are never an easy sell. But it also means going back on the promise she made to the CBI last year when she said she would not need to raise taxes again on the scale she did in autumn 2024. And there seems to be a very real chance that she will also decide to raise income tax, which would be a direct breach of a promise Labour made in its election manifesto.

Reeves is giving what is billed an important speech at 8.10am. As Jessica Elgot and Pippa Crerar report in their preview story, Reeves will “lay the groundwork for a tax-raising budget that could break Labour’s election promise on income tax, in a major speech in which she will be “candid” about the tough choices ahead”.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8.10am: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, gives a speech in Downing Street.

Morning: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

9.30am: The ONS publishes sexual offences crime data sexual offences from the Crime Survey for England & Wales 2024/25.

10am: Kemi Badenoch gives a speech in Westminster.

10.30am: The Commons defence committee takes evidence from journalists about the Afghan data breach.

11.30am: Reeves takes questions in the Commons.

Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 12.30pm: MPs debate two Tory opposition day motions, one calling for the abolition of business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure premises on the high street, and the other calling for people with “lower-level mental health conditions” to stop getting health and disability benefits, and for reforms to the Motability scheme.

2.30pm: Prof Brian Bell, chair of the migration advisory committee, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.

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Updated at 08.54 CET

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Starmer tells his MPs Reeves will deliver ‘Labour budget built on Labour values’

Keir Starmer perhaps gave a clearer hint as to what is coming in the budget when he addressed Labour MPs in private last night at a meeting of the PLP (parliamentary Labour party). This is what Jessica Elgot and Pippa Crerar are reporting in their splash story.

Starmer told MPs on Monday night it would be a “Labour budget built on Labour values” and promised it would protect the NHS, reduce debt and ease the cost of living.

The prime minister gave MPs a hint at how the government would frame its potential manifesto breach – saying it was “becoming clearer that the long-term impact of Tory austerity, their botched Brexit deal and the pandemic on Britain’s productivity is worse than even we feared”.

Starmer told the grim-faced crowd of MPs, many sceptical of the potential manifesto breach, that there would be “tough but fair decisions” – saying the choice of the Conservatives and Reform would be “to return us to austerity”.

MPs in the meeting repeatedly grilled Starmer on whether the budget would lift the two child benefit cap, in what one described as “coordinated” pressure on the prime minister.

While nobody raised concerns over a manifesto breach explicitly, at least one MP spoke about the necessity that the public “know what we stand for”. However, the absence of any direct confrontation over the manifesto may give Starmer and Reeves some confidence that they are not facing a major backlash from within the parliamentary Labour party.

Last night the Treasury released an extract from the speech that Rachel Reeves will give at 8.10am. For the record, this is what she is expected to say.

Later this month, I will deliver my second budget as chancellor.

At that budget, I will make the choices necessary to deliver strong foundations for our economy – for this year, and years to come.

It will be a budget led by this government’s values, of fairness and opportunity and focused squarely on the priorities of the British people:

Protecting our NHS, reducing our national debt and improving the cost of living.

You will all have heard a lot of speculation about the choices I will make.

I understand that – these are important choices that will shape our economy for years to come.

But it is important that people understand the circumstances we are facing, the principles guiding my choices – and why I believe they will be the right choices for the country.

At face value, these words reveal very little; they are what almost any chancellor might say ahead of almost any budget.

But they are being interpreted as confirmation that taxes will go up – and the Treasury is not making any attempt to persuade people that that reading is wrong.