Reeves refused to say whether she would accept a more junior job in cabinet if Burnham offered her one
As Kiran Stacey, Pippa Crerar and Dan Sabbagh report, senior government officials are planning to lobby Andy Burnham during access talks to revive the idea of “war bonds” to pay for higher defence spending when he becomes prime minister.
As the story explains, the Treasury has consistently opposed this idea.
That’s exactly what my fiscal rules allow.
We do treat now, for the first time ever, day to day spending and capital spending differently because of the fiscal rules. Up until now, it was all lumped in together as if it didn’t make a difference. But of course it makes a difference whether something boosts our longer term growth and productivity, which is what capital investment does. So we do have the flexibility within the fiscal rules to do exactly that.
Yes, because most defence spending is capital investment, whether you’re building new ships, investing in munitions.
Also, what is really crucial is that we get better value for money for our defence spending, which is why cooperation with our Nato allies, especially our European Nato allies, is really important.
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