Rachel Reeves is pushing ahead with plans to borrow billions of pounds extra for infrastructure investment, the Guardian has learned, despite concerns about the rising cost of UK government debt.
Downing Street said afterwards: “One of the first steps of this government is to restore economic stability, and the budget will absolutely deliver on that.” Reeves is believed to be exploring using an alternative debt metric to the one used in the rule she inherited from her Conservative predecessor, Jeremy Hunt.
However, her planning has been disrupted by changing analysis of how much each measure could raise, including one Treasury projection suggesting the non-dom changes might raise nothing at all. Others say the recent rise in borrowing costs is linked more to a similar rise in the cost of US government debt.