Rachel Reeves is like Steve Jobs and will rescue the UK economy in the same way that he saved Apple, insists minister ahead of Spending Review
Rachel Reeves can rescue the UK economy in the same way that Steve Jobs rescued Apple from the bring of insolvency, a senior minister claimed today.
Peter Kyle likened the Chancellor’s stewardship of the public finances to the late Mr Jobs’ role at Apple when the company was on the brink of insolvency in the late 1990s.
He spoke ahead of the spending review this week which is likely to see billions more ploughed into the NHS and education at the expense of other public services.
The health service is expected to receive a 2.8 per cent annual increase in its day-to-day budget over a three-year period.
The cash injection, which amounts to a rise of about £30 billion by 2028, or £17 billion in real terms, will see other areas including police and councils squeezed, The Times newspaper reported.
Rachel Reeves has acknowledged that she had been forced to turn down requests for funding in a sign of the behind-the-scenes wrangling over her spending review.
She blamed the former Conservative government’s stewardship of the economy rather than her self-imposed fiscal rules, which include a promise to match day-to-day spending with revenues.
And Mr Kyle told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme: ‘Just bear in mind how Apple turned itself around… when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, they were 90 days from insolvency – that’s the kind of situation that we had when we came into office.
Peter Kyle likened the Chancellor’s stewardship of the public finances to the late Mr Jobs’ role at Apple when the company was on the brink of insolvency in the late 1990s.
Rachel Reeves has acknowledged that she had been forced to turn down requests for funding in a sign of the behind-the-scenes wrangling over her spending review.
Mr Kyle told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme: ‘Just bear in mind how Apple turned itself around… when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, they were 90 days from insolvency – that’s the kind of situation that we had when we came into office.
‘Now Steve Jobs turned it around by inventing the iMac, moving to a series of products like the iPod.
‘Now we are starting to invest in the vaccine processes of the future, some of the high-tech solutions that are going to be high growth. We’re investing in our space sector… they will create jobs in the future.’
By CALUM MUIRHEAD
Rachel Reeves is planning a £3billion tax raid on millions of pensions.
The new Pension Schemes Bill lays out a blueprint for companies to take out ‘surplus’ cash from certain schemes.
The theory behind the plan is that companies can use the money to invest in their business and that would fuel growth.
But experts fear this could lead to a repeat of the Robert Maxwell scandal of the early 1990s, when the late tycoon stole £400 million from his staff pension fund to prop up his companies.
The Chancellor, who is desperate to raise tax revenues, would benefit because any ‘surpluses’ released are taxed at 25 per cent, which could raise almost £3billion over a decade.
The bill, tabled in Parliament last week, will affect old-style pension schemes where retirement incomes are linked to people’s pay packets, which have around nine million members.
British chancellor Rachel Reeves
Jobs, who co-founded Apple in 1976 with childhood friend Steve Wozniak, died form cancer in 2011.
The company had struggled as the maker of cult favourite home computers in the 1990s before he oversaw the introduction of a series of tech gadgets – the iPod, iMac and, most famously, the iPhone – which turned it into the world’s largest company by value.
Sir Keir Starmer is fighting to quell mounting Labour tensions over how to deal with the threat from Nigel Farage, as bitter Whitehall negotiations over the Government’s Spending Review go down to the wire.
Sources describe ‘very unpleasant’ exchanges between Rachel Reeves and senior Cabinet ministers, including Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Local Government Secretary Angela Rayner, as the Chancellor prepares to give the NHS a £30billion boost at the expense of the police and local councils.
Preparations for Wednesday’s announcement have been held against the backdrop of slamming doors and raised voices, as No 10 and the Treasury work out how to divide a limited pot of public money in a way most likely to arrest the surge in support for Mr Farage’s Reform UK.
Ms Reeves is expected to set out plans for an extra £113billion in spending on infrastructure projects such as Sizewell C nuclear power plant, and an extra 2.8 per cent real-terms increase in the NHS’s £200billion-a-year budget, amounting to an extra £30billion by 2028.
But with the economy barely growing, other departments have had to take a hit as a result.
A source said: ‘It turned nasty between Yvette and Rachel. It was just as bad as that between Rachel and Angela, who walked out during her negotiations.
‘Yvette was just passing on the concerns of the police, who said that without more money they would be forced to make stark choices about which crimes they prioritise.
‘The anger of the police shows they’ve been briefed by Cooper on how the negotiations are going, and they’re not happy.’
Sir Keir Starmer is fighting to quell mounting Labour tensions over how to deal with the threat from Nigel Farage, as bitter Whitehall negotiations over the Government’s Spending Review go down to the wire
Mr Kyle declined to rule out real-terms spending cuts to police and other areas in the spending review, warning ‘every part of our society is struggling’.
The Technology Secretary was asked whether he could guarantee there would not be a squeeze on the budgets for the departments of Housing Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
He told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: ‘The first thing is, in the last budget we gave a billion pounds extra to police. We are on the way to delivering 13,000 new police officers right through to community police officers so that people can have community policing back in their communities again.
‘On the fact that the police have been writing to the Chancellor… We also have letters from the universities, we have letters from doctors about the health service, we have letters from campaigners for child poverty writing to us, and other aspects of challenges in Britain at the moment.
‘Every part of our society is struggling because of the inheritance that we had as a country and as a Government.’
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