"There is £113bn that was not there"

 

This piece Reeves to champion £113bn of new capital investment in spending review by Jessica Elgot in the Guardian does exactly what it says on the tin - talks about the things the chancellor wants to talk about.

Rachel Reeves will put £113bn of new capital investment at the forefront of the spending review and argue that the billions of investment in homes, transport and energy would only have happened under Labour.

The billions unlocked by the change to the fiscal rules, which will be spent over the next parliament, will be at the centre of the government’s narrative in a fortnight’s time in an acknowledgment that Labour MPs need a better economic story to address rising discontent among the public.

So, just to be clear, that’s £113bn of free money that has been magically “unlocked by the change to the fiscal rules”? No, it will (probably) be additional borrowing.

And the claim that the money will be spent “over the next parliament” is as dodgy as it is lazy, not just because the next parliament will probably begin in 2029, but because Reeves doesn’t actually specify a time period, despite implying one with a dodgy "and":

“At the spending review coming up in June, we will invest more in capital, and we’re going to invest £113bn more in capital spending than the plans we inherited from the previous government.”

In fact:

“Reeves will hope details of how the government will spend the £113bn package will be enough to stave off further disquiet over harsh cuts to day-to-day spending expected in the spending review. Departments had been asked to model reductions in their budgets of as much as 7% over the next four years.”

So, not only is this the point of the story – “to stave off further disquiet” – the cuts to day-to day spending might be the source of some of the extra capital spending. In fact, some resource (revenue) spending might just be reclassified as capital.

There is a lot of self-serving guff from people who Elgot chooses to call “sources” but who are in fact spin doctors speaking on behalf of the government. Here, a “source” gives advance justification for the recycling of announcements:

Treasury sources said Reeves understood that the government needed to set out anew how the billions would be spent.

See what they did there?

The rest of the story is full of the usual scripted quotes:

One source said: “That is real money. It’s not empty promises, or the unsigned cheques the Tories used to do. It’ll be proper money, and this investment in Britain’s future will be a part of the theme of the spending review.

“There are trade-offs in spending reviews. But she’s made a clear political choice to invest in the long-term projects that will make a real difference to people’s communities. These will be Labour homes built by a Labour government. All this investment is Labour – no one else would have done it. We changed those rules and now there is £113bn that was not there.”

Pass the sickbag.