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Spending Review: "The black hole just got bigger that'll result in yet more tax hikes"

ended 11. June 2025

Rachel Reeves has revealed her Spending Review. She has unveiled a "new Affordable Homes Programme", which she says will get an investment of £39bn in the next decade. Labour promised to build 1.5million homes over this Parliament. Newspage asked experts for their views on the Spending Review. One said: “The black hole just got bigger, which will result in yet more tax hikes to pay for the spending.” Another said the investment in affordable housing “will likely take years to filter through and actually make a difference". While one more added: “This plan feels like a risky strategy to follow and could well lead to higher taxes if growth doesn't increase.”

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Michelle LawsonVerified
Director at Lawson Financial
Housing has never been a priority and isn't even a senior Government department. None of the recent Governments have met their own house-building targets so it is doubtful Labour will make this one. The black hole just got bigger, which will result in yet more tax hikes to pay for the spending. There aren't enough workers to build what we have now and business is struggling with the Chancellor's own tax rises impacting job hires and threatening redundancies. This country is at near strangulation point and self implosion.
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Pete MuglestonVerified
Mortgage Advisor & Managing Director at onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk
The announcement of £39 billion for new social and affordable housing is welcome, but without further details, it's hard to tell if it's bluster or not. Given that the government is struggling to meet its target of building 1.5 million new homes by 2029, it's not hard to be cynical about whether this announcement will come to fruition. The key point that isn't clear with this news is how it will be paid for. £39 billion is a huge figure, and it will likely require budgets to be squeezed in other areas for this pledge to be met without some tax rises.
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Kundan BhaduriVerified
Entrepreneur, Investor and Landlord at The Kushman Group
No planning reform, no private sector partnership, no grip on the real barriers to delivery. Just another top-down fantasy from a government that thinks taxpayer money can substitute for market dynamics. Rachel Reeves’ £39 billion pledge to build 1.5 million “affordable” homes is not a housing strategy but a press release with a price tag. Britain does not suffer from a lack of ambition, but from a bureaucratic planning system that blocks supply, penalises developers, and strangles growth with regulation. If Labour were serious, they would unleash private capital, incentivise SME builders, fast-track brownfield development, and fix a planning regime not fit for purpose. Instead, we get empty announcements and vague targets destined to be missed. The state cannot out-build the market, and it certainly cannot tax its way to prosperity. Britain needs homes, not headlines—and certainly not more government pretending to be the developer-in-chief.