Budget 2025 latest: Reeves dealt blow day before Spring Statement as Britons’ bleak view of economy revealed – UK Times

Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, responded to a report that found the number of victims driven to suicide has outstripped those killed by their partner for the second year running.

“Every death related to domestic abuse is a life cut short and a devastating tragedy. The better we understand the links between domestic abuse and homicides, suicides and unexpected deaths, the better equipped we are to prevent them from happening in the first place. That’s why the government has funded this vital research to shine a light on the scale of the problem.

“This report rightly demands coordinated action across government, police and partner agencies to tackle these issues head on – and we are already cracking on with work to put the voices of victims, their families and friends, and key stakeholders front and centre of this.

“Our upcoming violence against women and girls strategy will set out our ambition, and concrete actions to strengthen our response to perpetrators and deliver on our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.”

Amy-Clare Martin reports:

Stay Belvedere Hotels (SBHL) houses people waiting for asylum decisionsin 51 hotels in England and Wales, as well as the Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent, which is due to close and be returned to the Ministry of Defence in September.

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has said the government needed to review “disastrous contracts” on asylum accommodation inherited from the previous government.

“We’re doing so to improve management and guarantee value for money for the taxpayer.”

The Home Office is ending a contract with Stay Belvedere Hotels, who house asylum seekers in 51 hotels across England and Wales.

When asked if the Home Office would recover money from the contract, which will terminate in September 2026, the minister said: “The whole purpose of reviewing asylum contracts is to improve the management of them to guarantee value for money for the taxpayer … the operational details are being worked out.

“I’ll leave it to Home Office ministers to come back with the finer points of detail on the decision they’ve made, but work is underway to ensure the asylum services continue to operate as normal, to deal with the management problems.”

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has said that Rachel Reeves would have been sacked in any other industry because of her performance as Chancellor.

When asked if Ms Reeves should lose her job, the Tory leader told Talk TV: “I think in any other field she would have.

“But she’s actually one of the best they’ve got on the Labour benches, which is what’s really sad – if she goes we’re likely to get someone much worse.

“Listen to Labour backbenchers and a lot of the things that they ask for are completely crazy, they would bankrupt the country tomorrow.”

She said the “mistakes” made in Ms Reeves’ first budget were “what she is trying to fix now with the emergency budget we are getting tomorrow”.

“This is not something that’s reacting to world events, she made errors, problems have been caused and now she is going to try to fix them again tomorrow.”

Some 58 per cent of Brits say they believe the economy is worsening, with just one in 10 believing growth was getting better, according to a survey from KPMG.

The number of people who think the economy is degrading grew by 15 per cent in the last three months.

The survey of 3,000 UK consumers explored their buying behaviour in the three months to February. Those feeling insecure about their finances grew from 21 per cent to 24 per cent from December to February.

More than four in 10 said they are reducing their spend on everyday items and 36 per cent said they are saving more as a contingency.

Nearly one in three people surveyed said they were deferring the purchase of big-ticket items.

With big decisions ahead for Rachel Reeves, we want to hear from you: What do you want to see in tomorrow’s spring statement?

Should the chancellor introduce measures to protect living standards, such as targeted support for low-income households? Should she focus on economic growth and job creation through investment in infrastructure and skills?

Or would you like to see tax reform, closing loopholes and raising revenue in a different way? Perhaps public services investment should take priority, ensuring the NHS, education, and local councils have the funding they need.

Jake Richards, MP for Rother Valley, said of men’s mental health: “Men, especially young men, are spending less time outside, less time meeting people and communicating in person, all the things that make us far happier and healthier.

“They’re often sat alone for hours being bombarded with algorithms showing unrealistic representations of life or communicating through anonymous group chats.”

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has said he is “still confident, still committed” that Labour can build 1.5 million homes by the end of parliament as the government announces a new £2 billion housebuilding plan.

“It’s an incredibly stretching target. We could have picked a far less stretching target. Would have been far easier to meet.

“But it wouldn’t have been commensurate with the scale of the housing crisis that we face in this country.”

He pointed out that 160,000 children remain “homeless in temporary accommodation as we sit here”, adding: “We’ve got to take radical action to turn that around.”

He called the £2 billion an “immediate injection” that is “part of our commitment to deliver the biggest boost in social and affordable house building in a generation”.

“This is not the sum total of what we’ll invest in social and affordable housing for 2026-27; It’s a down payment on future long term funding, it’s a bridge to get us to a successor programme, but pulling that funding forward will give certainty to the sector.”

Have your say: The chancellor’s spring statement is just around the corner, bringing with it new concerns about the future of living standards in the UK.