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The future of the UK’s schools, hospitals and police hangs in the balance this week as Rachel Reeves prepares to unveil her first spending review.

With so much already known or leaked, there may not be much edge-of-your-seat excitement, but the Chancellor’s decisions will have a massive impact.

She will be setting out the budgets for different government departments until 2030 – making it clear to the public where her priorities lie.

After last year’s budget, we’ve become used to the language of ‘difficult choices’. Think of the changes to the winter fuel payment and inheritance tax, both cited as ways to get the economy back on track.

This time around, expect a new approach from the Chancellor. She’ll be announcing billions of pounds to help ministers achieve what they want to.

But while there will be high-profile winners, it’s inevitable there will also be painful cuts to other areas of government.

That’s because the spending review is not a budget: Reeves won’t be announcing any changes to how the Treasury raises cash. She can only allocate the cash it has, or knows it is going to get.

NHS

Health and social care is already comfortably the most expensive single item that the government spends money on.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the spend on health and social care for 2024/25 is £193.3 billion.

But of course, it’s not like the NHS is in an ideal state at the moment. It’s expected that Health Secretary Wes Streeting will get a significant financial boost to his department to pay for his ambitious plans.

Police

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is believed to still be in negotiations with the Treasury, barely 48 hours before the spending review is unveiled.

That’s because an increase in funding to areas like health, defence and education is may come at the expense of cuts to her already-stretched department.

Yesterday, it was reported in the Sunday Times that police budgets were on track to receive a real-terms rise, but that’s likely to mean other parts of the Home Office will face serious cuts.

Defence

It’s no secret that this government is keen to pour a significant amount of money into defence, with the main disagreement over how significant it should be.

After last week’s strategic defence review grabbed headlines, there’s a question mark over whether Keir Starmer will accept Nato recommendations to raise his defence spending target from 3% of GDP to a massive 5% of GDP.

Such a huge rise – in 2024, the UK spent 2.3% of GDP on defence – would, of course, force cuts to other parts of government. But even the existing commitments are causing a serious squeeze.

Science and tech

The Chancellor’s biggest announcement over the weekend was the science and tech budget, which will be £86 billion.

Drug and battery technology will be among the areas set to benefit, while local leaders across the country will be sent cash to develop what are described as ‘innovation clusters’.

Expect to hear a lot about AI later on today too – not just how it’ll be funded for sectors around the country, but also how government department will be encouraged to use the shiny new tech.

Education

Alongside health and defence, education is expected to be one of the big winners from today’s announcement.

Last week, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson revealed the expansion of free school meals for all pupils in families that receive universal credit, with the aim of tackling child poverty.

In an interview with the Observer, Reeves said schools will get an additional £4.5 billion a year, which will go towards teachers’ pay rises and reforms to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision.

Transport

Another major pre-spending review announcement last week was investment in buses, trams and local train infrastructure for England’s city regions.

There is also speculation one of the big projects included in the review may be a high-speed rail link between Liverpool and Manchester.

However, the squeeze could mean plans such as the DLR and Bakerloo Line extensions in London may be scrapped and schemes like the bus fare cap could come under pressure.

Local government

Like Yvette Cooper, Local Government Secretary Angela Rayner has also been locked into negotiations with the Treasury – though she reportedly reached an agreement yesterday.

The government has very ambitious targets for housing over the next few years, and those plans could fall short if serious cuts are made.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and London Mayor Sadiq Khan are among the local leaders who are asking for powers to introduce a tourist levy, though a source close to Khan said this looks unlikely.

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Mothers in Britain will soon have to make an inconceivable choice – send their sons to fight against Russian soldiers in Europe, or suffer the end of Nato, Ukraine’s former foreign minister has said.

Dmytro Kuleba issued the warning only a few hours after Kyiv faced what he described as ‘the worst drone assault’ since the start of the invasion.

He spoke to Metro exclusively about Vladimir Putin’s goal to ‘expose’ the ‘falsehood’ of the collective security commitment that binds members of the military alliance, and Europe’s ‘weaknesses’.

The politician said: ‘Putin may invade Nato territory soon – so now what? Is Nato going to send a division to fight back?

‘The first day that Nato will spend on deliberating whether to trigger Article 5 or not, and how to respond, will be the end of the alliance.

‘The first day the EU – which is no big bother to England – is going to spend discussing its response to Russia, is going to be the end of it too.

‘This is what Putin is pursuing, because he hates Ukraine – but he deeply despises Europe too. It is a very deep conviction.’

Kuleba is not the only one to sound an alarm over the future of Europe and Nato.

Just last week, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said Russia may be ready to attack the alliance within five years, calling for a ‘quantum leap’ in defence spending and industrial mobilisation to avert the conflict.

Putin’s war machine has been speeding up. On April 1, Russia launched its largest conscription drive with the goal of enlisting 160,000 men. Drone production has also been taking centre-stage.

Away from a military spend increase, Kuleba stressed that the ‘real focus’ should be on developing ‘the will to defend yourself’ in Europeans.

He said: ‘Many people believe that the real test for Nato is whether the US is going to fight for Europe.

‘The real test will be whether British mothers will actually accept that their sons have to die for Finland or Estonia or Poland. If they don’t, there is no Nato.

‘This is is how World War II started. “Why fight for Danzig [now the city of Gdańsk]? Let’s give it to Hitler, it is just a city in Poland. Why should we die for it?” That was the question asked by western European nations [at the time].

‘And this is exactly the question that Putin is going to pose to Nato. Europe is already spending money on weapons, but it has to do so much faster.

‘But the real question is, who is going to tell the voters that the threat of the war is real?’

Kuleba’s warnings come from a wealth of experience. Before the beginning of the war, no one in Ukraine – and the rest of Europe – did actually believe that Russia would invade and proceed to massacre tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers.

He also made the mistake of thinking that after a certain number of Russian losses in Ukraine – ‘like 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers’ – Putin would eventually withdraw.

It is estimated that there have been one million Russian soldiers killed and wounded since the conflict began in Feburary 2022.

It is this ‘same pattern of behaviour’ – blindly trusting that Putin ‘would not dare’ to attack – that Kuleba sees across Europe.

He said: ‘Telling the truth to people about the prospect of war in Europe is what requires more attention than anything else…

‘People in Britain or any other country can listen to what I’m saying or they can decide that I am a warmongering Ukrainian who is trying to pull them into my war.

‘I am perfectly fine with any choice they make. What I can say, what I can urge them, is not to repeat our mistakes.

‘The biggest mistake Ukraine made was that we did not believe that this can happen to us on this scale. We, in Ukraine, also believed that it is not going to happen to us because Putin would never dare to do it.

‘So this is the mistake that people are making. I look around in Europe and I just see the same pattern happening. The same pattern of behaviour.

‘Do you think that if Ukraine was able to attack airfields in Russia, 1,000 miles away from Ukraine, Russia is not able to attack any piece of infrastructure in any European country? That would be a very, very big mistake to think so.’

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