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In the Spring Statement, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made further cuts to benefits (such as freezing the Universal Credit health element for new claimants). The Office for Budget Responsibility had said that the cuts announced before would not let her meet her budget rules. She now planned a £9.9 billion surplus by 2030, but would borrow more in the coming financial year. Civil service running costs would be cut by 15 per cent, with about 10,000 of its 547,735 staff to go. She concentrated on a £2.2 billion increase in defence spending and proposed that Britain should become a ‘defence industrial superpower’. The OBR reduced its forecast of growth this year from 2 to 1 per cent, increasing to 1.8 by 2029. The Chancellor told the House that the OBR had said households will be ‘on average’ £500 better off ‘under this government’. Annual inflation fell to 2.8 per cent from 3 per cent; the Chancellor said it would fall to 2 per cent by 2027. The Bank of England held interest rates at 4.5 per cent. Its governor, Andrew Bailey, said: ‘There are strong headwinds.’
Heathrow Airport closed for a day because of a fire at an electricity substation in Hayes that supplies it, which also cut off 16,300 houses; 1,351 flights were directly affected. National Grid said that another substation had been available. The government approved the £9 billion 14-mile Lower Thames Crossing road tunnel between Tilbury and Gravesend. It was revealed that Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB double agent who defected to Britain in 1985, had died, aged 86. Morrisons said it was to shut 52 cafés and 17 small stores.
On the day that her estranged husband, Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National Party, appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court charged with embezzlement, Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister of Scotland, said: ‘I don’t think there was ever a scrap of evidence that I had done anything wrong,’ in response to an announcement that she will face no action in the Police Scotland investigation into SNP finances.
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