This week’s spending review is the latest challenge for Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves (Image: Getty)
A crackdown on benefit fraudsters and a cash injection into science and technology are promised as the country awaits the Chancellor’s spending review. The Treasury hopes that action to tackle fraudsters will save taxpayers nearly £10billion over the next five years.
A source claimed “out of control levels of fraud and error” means a “shameful” £39billion was taken from taxpayers during the last Parliament.
The “biggest ever package” of measures to stamp out welfare fraud and error will see the Department for Work and Pensions gain powers to take fraudsters’ driving licences away, recover debt directly from bank accounts and get new information on banking activity.
A Government source said: “If people aren’t entitled to benefits, they shouldn’t be getting them. We have been clear we will not tolerate fraud, error or waste in the broken welfare system – especially as it’s always hard-working taxpayers who foot the bill.
“By rooting it out and stopping these fraudsters, we will deliver our plan for change and save taxpayers money.”
The spending review – which allocates Government cash across department – will be closely watched for winners and losers. Police chiefs have warned of serious consequences if their funding is cut.
£86billion promised to boost science and technology
But the Government is promising an £86billion boost to science and technology to “turbocharge” the economy. The cash will go towards projects ranging from new drug treatments to longer-lasting batteries and Artificial Intelligence in a bid to “generate billions for the UK economy”.
A research and development funding package worth more than £22.5billion a year by 2029/30 is promised. It is designed to empower “local leaders” to develop “innovation clusters” throughout the country through a “local innovation partnerships fund”.
This is expected to boost “drug discovery” in Liverpool, defence technology in Belfast and semiconductor development in South Wales. In addition, nearly £5million is being invested to “kick-start” a new partnership between the Manchester and Cambridge regions, which are considered “hubs of innovation”.
According to the Treasury, every £1 invested in R&D generates up to £7 in benefits to the UK economy.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Britain is the home of science and technology. [We] are investing in Britain’s renewal to create jobs, protect our security against foreign threats and make working families better off.”
Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle added: “R&D is the very foundation of the breakthroughs that make our lives easier and healthier – from new medicines enabling us to live longer, more fulfilled lives to developments in AI giving us time back, from easing our train journeys through to creating the technology we need to protect our planet from climate change. Incredible and ambitious research goes on in every corner of our country, from Liverpool to Inverness, Swansea to Belfast, which is why empowering regions to harness local expertise and skills for all of our benefit is at the heart of this new funding – helping to deliver the economic growth at the centre of our plan for change.”
Labour’s shameful secret – damning figures on asylum hotels Starmer wants you to miss
The Home Office quietly released the figures recently (Image: Getty )
Shocking new figures show Labour are still ploughing billions of taxpayers’ cash into a foreign aid budget that is largely used to cover the cost of housing some 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels in the UK. Whitehall data shows the Home Office plans to spend a staggering £2.2 billion of overseas development assistance (ODA) this financial year.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) cash is meant to be directed abroad to help with humanitarian projects in country’s which most need assissatance, but a loophole in international rules means governments can spend the money supporting asylum seekers during their first year of arrival.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party had promised before the General Election to “end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds”, but according to the BBC recent damning new figures showing barely any change in the budget covering asylum hotels were released by the Home Office with no press release in recent days. The £2.2 billion earmarked this year is only marginally less than the £2.3 billion it spent in 2024/25.
A former RAF base which had been earmarked as an asylum centre (Image: SWNS )
Just days ago on June 3, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Home Affairs Committee “we need to end asylum hotels altogether”.
But Whitehall officials told the BBC there is no incentive for the Home Office to cut back on the controversial spending because ODA money comes out of the FCDO budget, and not from Home Office coffers.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told the BBC: “Labour promised in their manifesto to end the use of asylum hotels for illegal immigrants. But the truth is there are now thousands more illegal migrants being housed in hotels under Labour.
“Now these documents reveal that Labour are using foreign aid to pay for asylum hotel accommodation – yet another promise broken.”
Labour claims it is seeking to return more immigrants who fail asylum (Image: PA )
He said: “It is essential that we support refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, but the government should not be robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
A Home Office spokesperson told the BBC: “We inherited an asylum system under exceptional pressure, and continue to take action, restoring order, and reduce costs. This will ultimately reduce the amount of Official Development Assistance spent to support asylum seekers and refugees in the UK.
“We are immediately speeding up decisions and increasing returns so that we can end the use of hotels and save the taxpayer £4bn by 2026.
“The Rwanda Scheme also wasted £700m to remove just four volunteers – instead, we have surged removals to nearly 30,000 since the election, are giving law enforcement new counter-terror style powers, and increasing intelligence sharing through our Border Security Command to tackle the heart of the issue, vile people-smuggling gangs.”
Express.co.uk have contacted the Home Office for comment.
