Reeves tells Britain to get ready for 'hard choices' in UK budget
Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivers a speech in the media briefing room of 9 Downing Street, central London, on November 4, 2025, ahead of the forthcoming Budget.
London. British finance minister Rachel Reeves on Tuesday framed her second annual budget as one of "hard choices" to secure public spending while reducing Britain's debt, signalling possible broad tax rises to avoid a return to "austerity".
In what was an unusual speech for a finance minister to make just three weeks before delivering the budget, Reeves set out the difficult economic backdrop she was wrestling with, pointing to high debt levels, low productivity and stubborn inflation.
This meant, she said, the government would most likely have to entail "hard choices" in the budget on November 26, ones which would force "all here to contribute" to secure the health, education and jobs she described as the nation's priorities.
"As I take my decisions on both tax and spend, I will do what is necessary to protect families from high inflation and interest rates ... to protect our public services from a return to austerity," she told a news conference.
"I understand the urge for easy answers. Politicians of recent years have become addicted to shelling out for short term sticking plaster solutions, rather than making long-term economic plans. They were irresponsible then, and those who continue to push for easy answers, they're irresponsible now."
Her words, which firmly put the blame for the state of the economy on previous Conservative administrations, suggested the Labour government could break the party's election manifesto not to raise key taxes -- income tax, VAT or National Insurance.
The Resolution Foundation think tank - whose former head Torsten Bell is now a minister advising Reeves - predicts she will need to increase taxes by 26 billion pounds ($35 billion).
