Winter fuel payments scrapped for millions of pensioners

The following spending projects have been scrapped:

Ms Reeves also said that she would not go ahead with selling shares the government owns in NatWest to the public, as her predecessor had planned to do, as it “would not represent value for money”.

The Rwanda deportation scheme for illegal migrants has also been scrapped, as per the Labour manifesto.

Ms Reeves said the former government had committed to spending money it did not have and that it did not tell the OBR about this.

Ms Reeves said the unfunded overspend from the previous government included £6.4bn on the asylum system, including the Rwanda scheme, and £1.6bn in transport.

The OBR said in a letter published on Monday that it was “made aware of the extent of these pressures at a meeting with the Treasury last week”.

It said this could “constitute one of the largest year-ahead overspends against… forecasts outside of the pandemic years”.

As a result it is reviewing how it prepared its forecast for the March 2024 Budget and will assess “the adequacy of the information and the assurances provided to the OBR by the Treasury regarding departmental spending”.

Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, said the £6.4bn overspend on asylum this year was a “huge number” that “does genuinely appear to have been unfunded”.

However, he added that “half of [the] spending ‘hole’ is public pay over which government made a choice and where pressures were known”.

Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt said Ms Reeves’ claims were spurious.

Labour has previously said it will not borrow to fund “day-to-day costs”, which means it would only pay for things using the money it has already raised from tax.

However, Labour has also previously said it could borrow to invest, leaving it some wiggle room on projects like HS2.

During the election campaign, the Conservatives made similar commitments on tax and spending.

Economists said at the time both parties would either need to cut spending or raise taxes under their self-imposed fiscal rules.