Labour Party sources said on Friday that this assessment had found a shortfall of around 20 billion pounds ($26 billion) and on Saturday Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said it would “show that Britain is broke and broken”.

 

Late on Sunday, the finance ministry said the audit would show “the previous government overspent this year’s budgets by billions of pounds after making a series of unfunded promises”.

 

Reeves will also announce a new Office of Value for Money, a crackdown on government waste, reduced use of external consultants and a sell-off of unused government property, the finance ministry said.

 

In her planned speech to parliament, Reeves says: “The previous government refused to take the difficult decisions.

They covered up the true state of the public finances. And then they ran away.”

 

Britain’s Conservatives dismissed these accusations as a pretext from Labour to raise taxes, after the centre-left party had ruled out raising the rates of income tax, value-added tax and other main taxes during the election campaign.

 

Budget forecasts in March were signed off by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, although there was widespread reporting of funding challenges in areas such as prisons and healthcare.

 

“Rachel Reeves is trying to con the British public into accepting Labour’s tax rises. She wants to pretend that the OBR … whose forecasting was used in all of the last Conservative government’s budgets, doesn’t exist,” said Gareth Davies, a Conservative lawmaker who speaks for the party on budget policy.

First Published: Jul 29 2024 | 9:26 AM IST