Labour’s first Budget will take place on February 5th and will end austerity - John McDonnell

In a speech in London this morning, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell announced that Labour’s first Budget will take place on February 5th and will end austerity, including:

·       Put more money into an emergency package of reforms to Universal Credit while Labour designs a replacement social security system;

·       Introduce a Real Living Wage of £10ph for all workers over 16;

·       Provide funding for a 5% pay rise for all public sector workers after years of seeing their pay capped;

·       Enacting the department spending plans promised in Labour’s ‘Grey Book’, Funding Real Change, putting billions more into schools, hospitals and social care 

Announcing the date of the first Budget, McDonnell said:

“I can tell you today that my first act as Chancellor will be write to the Office for Budget Responsibility, asking them to begin their preparations for my first Budget, which will be given on the 5th of February – the date when almost ten years of cuts will come to an end.”

McDonnell said that the three priorities for the Treasury of the next Labour government would be:

·       Labour’s first Budget to end austerity in social security and public services;

·       Getting investment flowing to communities neglected for decades, as part of Labour’s Green Industrial Revolution;

·       Beginning the process of bringing key utilities into public ownership under democratic management.