Budget 2025 live: Rachel Reeves says tax and spending changes based on ‘fair and necessary’ choices

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Farmers stage budget day protest in Whitehall - despite Met police telling them to stay away

Yesterday the Metropolitan police said they were not allowing a planned protest in Westminster by farmers to coincide with the budget. Farmers have been protesting regularly about the decision announced in Rachel Reeves’ budget last year to extend inheritance tax to farms.

The decision was criticised by the Conservative party, who said originally the Met had indicated the protest would be allowed. Last night Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, issued a statement saying:

It doesn’t smell right, particularly when we think of the regular and frequent protests that are allowed in SW1 which inconvenience motorists, residents and businesses without consideration. Is this to save the chancellor embarrassment ahead of her budget of broken promises?”

This morning some farmers turned up anyway. As PA Media reports:

A number of tractors were seen driving through Westminster early on Wednesday, with police stopping around 20 of them in the vicinity.

This included a farmer dressed as Father Christmas, his tractor carrying a large spruce tree and bearing a sign that read “Farmer Christmas – the naughty list: Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Diane Abbott, Angela Rayner & the BBC”.

The tractor was parked in Whitehall before Metropolitan Police officers intervened.

Another tractor remains parked outside Parliament in Abingdon Street bearing the slogan “Fools vote Labour”.

A tractor with a protest sign outside the Houses of Parliament this morning. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Reuters

A tractor from the Littledown Christmas Tree Farm parked in Whitehall this morning. Photograph: Harriet Tolson/PA

Tractors in Whitehall this morning. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Tractors in Whitehall. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Here are some more pictures of ministers arriving at Downing Street this morning for the pre-budget cabinet.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary. Photograph: Victoria Jones/Shutterstock

Jonathan Reynolds, the chief whip. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images

Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Darren Jones says some pre-budget leaks have been 'unacceptable, and not very helpful'

Darren Jones, the Cabinet Office minister and chief secretary to the prime minister, admitted this morning that some of the pre-budget leaks have infuriated No 10.

Jones was on the morning interview round for the government this morning and, asked about budget leaks, he told LBC:

There have been some leaks which are unacceptable and not very helpful.

We’ve had to read the riot act to people in government about that.

Jones seemed to be referring in particular to the Financial Times story that revealed that Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer had decided not to raise income tax in the budget, which would have breached a manifesto promise, even though they had clearly signalled the previous week that they would.

While some pre-budget stories that appear in the media are the product of official briefing, the FT story was not sanctioned and, even though it was true – rather, especially because it was true – it was not something No 10 wanted revealed at that point.

Darren Jones arriving at No 10 for cabinet this morning. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Rachel Reeves working on her budget speech with aides Photograph: HM Treasury

Reeves says budget will involve 'fair and necessary' choices

This is how the Treasury summed up the budget in a news release issued last night. It refers to budget measures that have already officially been announced, as well as setting out what Rachel Reeves says are her priorities.

[The budget] will include action to cut NHS waiting lists, cut debt and borrowing, and cut the cost of living to secure a strong future for the country, built on fairness and fuelled by growth.

Action to keep prescription costs under £10, freeze rail fares for the first time in 30 years and increase the national minimum wage and national living wage by £1,500 and £900 respectively has already been confirmed to put more money in people’s pockets at this budget.

Investment for 250 neighbourhood health centres has also been confirmed as part of the chancellor’s commitment to slash NHS waiting lists further and end the postcode lottery of healthcare access.

And here is a quote from Reeves.

Today I will take the fair and necessary choices to deliver on our promise of change.

I will not return Britain back to austerity, nor will I lose control of public spending with reckless borrowing.

I will take action to help families with the cost of living … cut hospital waiting lists … cut the national debt.

And I will push ahead with the biggest drive for growth in a generation.

Investment in roads, rail and energy. Investment in housing, security and defence. Investment in education, skills and training.

So together, we can build a fairer, stronger, and more secure Britain.

Budget to target cost of living crisis as Reeves battles to keep Labour MPs on side

Good morning. Budgets fall into two categories – reset ones, and continuity ones. Continuity budgets are more normal (or at least they were until British politics entered near-permanent crisis mode), and the reset ones tend to happen immediately after an election, or when there has been a change of chancellor. Reset budgets are more interesting (but interesting in the way journalists use the word, which is when what they really mean is ‘bad news’). This time last year Rachel Reeves thought the 2025 budget would be a continuity one, but instead it has turned into a colossal reset challenge – and, indeed, an event with the potential to make or break the Keir Starmer premiership.

Here is our overnight preview story.

The stakes are particularly high because anyone who has spent time talking to Labour MPs in recent weeks believes there is a chance that, by this time next year, Starmer could be out of office. There are good reasons why that probably won’t happen, but the idea that it might isn’t preposterous. That is one reason why there is so much at stake.

We have covered the reasons for this at length over the past few months and there is no need to rehearse them here. As for what to expect in the budget, Richard Partington has a good article here explaining the context.

And, in our First Edition newsletter, Phoebe Weston has a guide as to what to expect.

I will be focusing exclusively on the budget today (apart from covering PMQs) and Graeme Wearden, who writes the business live blog, will be joining me. As usual, we will be covering the speech minute by minute, bringing you reaction and analysis, and diving into the budget documents to find the bits Reeves did not mention in her speech.

Here is the timetable for the day.

9am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet, where Rachel Reeves will brief colleagues on the budget.

Noon: Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

12.30pm: Reeves delivers the budget. Kemi Badenoch responds on behalf of the Conservative party.

2.30pm: Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, holds a press conference.

Afternoon: Starmer and Reeves are due to speak to staff at a hospital where they will take questions on the budget.

4pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, holds a post-budget press conference.

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