Winter fuel payments to be restricted as Reeves says there is £22bn spending shortfall – UK politics live | Politics

Reeves says the Tories “spent like there was no tomorrow because they know someone else would pick up the bill”.

And at the election they did this all over again, she says.

She says she will never do that. She will make the tough choices, and fix the foundations of Britain to make ever part of the country better off.

Reeves says he will set up a new Office of Value for Money, to make public spending more effective.

And she will appoint a commissioner to recover money spent on Covid contracts that was not justified, she says.

Reeves said adult social care charging reforms delayed by the Tories (imposing a cap on how much people have to pay for adult social care) will not be taken forward, saving more than £1bn by the end of next year.

Reeves says she is launching a multi-year spending review. That will allow more long-term planning, she says.

Final budgets for this year, and for next year, will be announced alongside the budget on 30 October, she says.

Reeves says she will hold a budget on October 30.

That will involve “taking difficult decisons .. across spending, welfare and tax”, she says.

Reeves says pensioners not in receipt of pension credit will no longer get the winter fuel payment.

That means it will only go to poorer pensioners.

She says this is not a decision she wanted or expected to make.

But this is an urgent decision she has to make.

Reeves says she is abandoning the Tories’ plans to sell remaining shares in NatWest owned by the government to the public.

Reeves says, even though Rishi Sunak was personally committed to the advanced British standard (a new educational qualification, replacing A levels, ensuring all pupils study maths up ot the age of 18), he did not set aside any money for it.

So she is cancelling it, she says.

Reeves says the pay review body recommendations will come at an additional cost of £9bn, because the last government had not said what was affordable.

She says she is asking departments to find £3bn to help the new government meet these recommendations.

Reeves says the spending plans included £6.4bn on the asylum system due to be spent this year. That sum was unfunded and undisclosed.

She says the transport budget included commitments worth £1.6bn that were unfunded.

And, on public sector pay, she says the government had made recommenations to the pay review bodies without telling them what would affordable. That was almost unprecedented.

She confirms that the government has reached a deal with the junior doctors.

Reeves says when she was told by officials there were unfunded commitments worth £22bn this year.

She says she will show how she will address this with measures worth £5.5bn this year, and more than £8bn next year.

Keir Starmer is in the chamber, sitting on the front bench as Rachel Reeves starts.

Reeves starts by paying tribute to the emergency service dealing with the Southport attack.

She says she will reveal the seriousness of what has been uncovered by the assessment of the inheritance left by the Tories. She will then say what she will do about it, before talking about her long-term plans.

She says she said before the election she would face the worst economic situation facing an incoming government.

But since becoming chancellor, she has discovered things she did not know about – things covered up by the Tories.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is about to make her statement to MPs on the “spending inheritance” left by the Tories.

Here is a picture of her working on the statement earlier in her study.