Next week’s Spring Statement will include the “biggest cuts since austerity”, the Guardian reports, after major reforms to disability benefits were announced earlier this week. Chancellor Rachel Reeves will tell MPs on Thursday she intends to cut Whitehall budgets by “billions more than expected”, the paper says. Economists have said the cuts will “harm key public services”, it adds.
Reeves will not raise taxes when she delivers the Spring Statement on Wednesday, the i Paper reports. But future cuts to benefits are “now likely”, it says. It adds that rebellion is “still brewing” within Labour over the government’s plan to save £5bn on disability and welfare payments.
Other front pages focus on triple-murderer Nicholas Prosper, who was “arrested by chance” on the way to carry out more killings at his former school, the Metro reports. “Stopped on massacre mission” is its headline.
The Daily Express says that “‘evil’ family killer” Prosper was “forced to hear his fate” in court after a judge ordered him to stop “cowering in his cell”. The teenager was jailed for 49 years on Wednesday for killing his mother, brother and sister.
An independent review finds that biological sex has been “erased from official data”, the Daily Mail reports. Crime and health records are instead listing a person’s gender, the paper adds.
The Daily Telegraph says criminals are “free to pick their own gender” because the government is “refusing to force police to record biological sex”. Its story is also based on a review into sex and gender data collection.
Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore received a “flippering fab welcome home” after nine months stuck in space, the Daily Star says. Dolphins are pictured alongside the pair’s capsule in the sea on the paper’s front page.
The US Federal Reserve has slashed its growth forecast as President Donald Trump’s tariffs have “cast a shadow” over the economy, the Financial Times reports.
Trump is eyeing a “takeover of Ukraine’s atomic sites”, according to the Times. The president has now “moved beyond” a proposed minerals deal with the country which did not mention nuclear power, the paper says.
“I’d do it all again” is the Daily Mirror’s headline, alongside a picture of a smiling Matt Hancock. The former health secretary defended the “VIP lane” for pandemic-era PPE contracts at the Covid inquiry on Wednesday, which allowed “pals of the Tories” to be “fast-tracked” for deals, the paper reports.
Former Casualty star Amanda Mealing crashed her car while on cocaine, “seriously injuring a nurse”, the Sun reports. The actress admitted drug-driving and was handed a 22-month driving ban on Wednesday. The crash took place in Lincolnshire in January of last year.
