Is Labour about to go on a borrowing spree?

At Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, Rishi Sunak took a technical turn. Why is Rachel Reeves considering changing the fiscal rules, he asked the Prime Minister, when just last year she said doing so would be ‘tantamount to fiddling the figures.’ No clear answer followed. 

The wisdom during the general election was that borrowing more money – to finance Labour or Tory spending promises – was simply not an option. No one dared to propose anything resembling Liz Truss’s mini-budget saga, which saw her attempt to borrow £100 billion to limit energy price rises for consumers. 

Instead, the parties said they would make good on their spending promises by going for growth: a vital component to make the public finances sustainable, but also only as good as the supply-side reforms that back up the pledge. 

It also was understood that Labour would opt for tax hikes – though most of those details were going to be kept deliberately vague until the Budget.