Chancellor Rachel Reeves poised to inject real-terms funding increase amid warnings over “broken” service
Policing in the UK is set to receive a long-awaited above-inflation funding boost, following tense Cabinet discussions over the weekend as Chancellor Rachel Reeves finalised her first comprehensive spending review.
In a move designed to address mounting concerns over stretched resources and dwindling frontline presence, Ms Reeves is expected to announce a real-terms increase to police budgets every year for the next three years. The Chancellor will unveil the spending plans on Wednesday, allocating a share of the £113 billion made available by recent changes to borrowing rules.
However, the boost to policing will not come without cost elsewhere. The Times understands that other areas within the Home Office are facing significant cuts to free up the funds—cuts that reflect the Treasury’s broader challenge of meeting competing priorities within tight fiscal limits.
Health, education, and national security are expected to be named as the Chancellor’s key priorities, with the NHS poised to be the biggest beneficiary. The Department of Health and Social Care is likely to receive up to £30 billion in additional funding, while schools will see a £4.5 billion rise in their day-to-day budgets by 2028–29.
Nonetheless, insiders suggest the process has been fraught. While Ms Reeves remains committed to Labour’s fiscal rules—particularly the pledge to match day-to-day spending with revenues—she has reportedly had to reject a swathe of bids from colleagues for pet projects. Senior aides have described the wrangling as “inevitable” in the context of squeezed budgets and a host of competing pledges, not least the promise to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, and eventually to 3% by 2034.
The increase in police funding comes after urgent warnings from senior policing figures, who declared the service to be in “crisis”. Writing in The Telegraph, Nick Smart, President of the Police Superintendents’ Association, and Tiff Lynch, Acting Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, accused the Government of failing to grasp the scale of the crisis in law enforcement.
“Police forces across the country are being forced to shed officers and staff to deliver savings,” they wrote. “These are not administrative cuts. They go to the core of policing’s ability to deliver a quality service: fewer officers on the beat, longer wait times for victims, and less available officers when crisis hits.”
The warning appears to have landed. Sources within the Home Office said Ms Reeves and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper have held “constructive but candid” discussions about the pressure on the frontline, and the damage that continued austerity could do to public confidence in law and order.
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Ms Reeves is expected to make clear in her speech that investing in safety is essential to rebuilding trust in public services, and that security is “not negotiable” in the Labour Government’s priorities. While the new funding will not reverse all recent cuts, it is likely to stave off the worst staff reductions and allow forces to retain—and possibly expand—key operational roles.
Alongside policing and health, the Chancellor will also reaffirm her Government’s commitment to innovation, with an £86 billion package earmarked for science and technology research and development.
But with inflation still biting and growth modest, economists have warned that even with relaxed borrowing rules, the Treasury’s room for manoeuvre remains narrow. “Reeves is walking a tightrope,” said one former Bank of England adviser. “She’s trying to satisfy manifesto commitments, keep the unions quiet, and maintain market confidence—all at once.”
The full details of the three-year spending framework will be laid out in Parliament on Wednesday, and will mark the first major economic test of the new Labour administration’s priorities in office.
