Get ready for the brutal benefit bill that will bankrupt Britain

Buried in the OBR’s assessment of the Budget is this: the official analysis concludes that none of the 88 measures announced are likely to have a “material effect” on boosting economic growth.

This, from a chancellor who used to say repeatedly that she was going “further and faster” to kickstart the economy, which she said was the government’s “number one mission”. Indeed, that is what Rachel Reeves and her colleagues were elected upon, the promise that they would galvanise business, that they would fire the UK engine. That they knew how. Trust them.

Reeves has not uttered her mantra for a while. She daren’t, because even her tin ear must tell her she would be laughed out of court if she did.

Perhaps, though, she and her boss, Sir Keir Starmer, were engaged in a grand act of deception all along. Perhaps they led the electorate to believe they would do one thing while they were intent on pursuing another. That is certainly how it feels today, after they pushed taxes to an all-time high and, as the Budget watchdog states, did nothing to fulfil their avowed mission.

There is one bit of the UK economy that is growing and that is welfare spending. The bill currently stands at £314bn and is due to increase to £406bn over the next five years. That must be what Reeves meant as she sought our approval, our money to drive her much-touted agenda. We’ve been taken for a grotesque ride.

Health and disability benefits will climb from £77bn to £109bn by 2030. That really is “further and faster”. She did enough to give it an extra fillip yesterday, by removing the two-child benefit cap – despite having said a year ago the country could not afford to scrap it.

As she lifted the limit, the backbenchers behind her roared their approval. They loved it; this was a Labour Budget, delivered by someone who was doing their bidding.

They’re the same folks who, when given the chance to reduce the welfare total, made their feelings known – they were against, it was not going to happen and the attempted shake-up perished.

There they were again, applauding and waving their order papers. In front of them, Reeves doled out more and more cash to constituents who made no financial contribution but were somehow deemed to be fully deserving.

Some, through no fault of their own, through sickness or infirmity, are genuinely unable to work, or have contributed in the past. They should be supported. But the Welfare Reform Bill was intended to sort out who to support, and who not to, and, in what will go down in history as a monumental act of folly, Starmer bottled it. Many on the left of his party were opposed to the bill, so rather than risk their opprobrium, he caved in.

So, a post-Covid Britain is left with a bloated public payments system that requires constant feeding, possessing an appetite that is destined to keep on growing forever. That is where the only place the much-vaunted “further and faster” growth resides. There, and in the imaginations of Reeves and her approving comrades.

It’s not occurring outside, in the real world. There’s no chance, not now, as the OBR rightly says.

No thought is given, seemingly in the Treasury, around the Cabinet table and on the Labour seats, as to who is paying for it all. They utter noises about making “fair and necessary choices”. That’s as maybe, but there is no fairness from them, from the other side, no commensurate attempt to bring down that benefits mountain, no meaningful quid pro quo.

It’s entirely one-sided and it is only going to get worse. The hit play Nye has just come to the end of its run at the National Theatre. It is a stirring drama set to music, eulogising the founding of the British welfare state by Aneurin “Nye” Bevan. Nothing wrong with that. As minister for health and housing in the post-war Labour government, Bevan’s achievement was huge and transformational, correcting severe societal wrongs. But when it launched, the UK population was 43 million. Today, these islands are home to 69 million. People are living longer and medical treatments are available that are more complex and expensive. Those who are moved to tears – and several were when I went – pay little attention to that. They simply expect that the cost will always be met, same as Reeves, buoyed by the acclaim of her MPs.

What we witnessed from her was shameless. Just as Starmer sacrificed prudent financial management on the altar of Labour ideology with his ditching of welfare reform, so did Reeves. Hers never was a budget for growth, except in one damning respect.