Can the Treasury get the public onside with its spending cuts?

As Rachel Reeves attempts to woo investors at Davos, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has stayed behind in London as work gets underway on Labour’s comprehensive spending review. Darren Jones also found time to set out his thinking in a keynote speech at the Institute for Government’s 2025 conference, where he laid out stricter funding requirements for government departments and plans for Treasury reform in a bid to impose tighter controls over spending. 

Jones batted off attempts to pin him down on government controversies playing out elsewhere – using, as Keir Starmer did in PMQs on Wednesday, the ‘speculation’ excuse to avoid commenting on plans to install a third runway at Heathrow Airport, a move that he had previously labelled ‘unconscionable’. Sticking to the script, he was clear that if government departments don’t meet the Treasury’s requested 5 per cent spending cut they won’t receive money for new projects. ‘We are long overdue a reckoning with government spending,’ Jones said firmly.