Cabinet Readout - Wednesday, November 26

The Prime Minister opened Cabinet by thanking the Chancellor and her wider team for their work on today's Budget. He said they had achieved balance, stability and fairness. The Prime Minister said cost of living issues affected almost every family and the government had introduced a number of immediate measures to tackle it, including the extension of free breakfast clubs, free school meals, reducing school uniform costs, freezing prescription charge costs or freezing rail fares for the first time in 30 years. The Prime Minister said these were a strong and tangible set of measures that directly drive down the cost of living for people right now. He said today's Budget was not a spreadsheet, but a question of choices centred in fairness. Today's Budget, he added, was about what kind of country we want to live in. He said the fight was between renewal or decline - and this government chose renewal. 

The Prime Minister then invited the Chancellor to set out the Budget in more detail to Cabinet. The Chancellor then did so, saying the government was making the fair and necessary choices to strengthen our foundations and drive down the cost of living.