RACHEL Reeves has been accused of using “Thatcherite language” in her latest crackdown on public spending.
The Chancellor has announced that she will call in senior bankers to challenge Whitehall departments over their spending plans as she pledged to “take an iron fist against waste”.
She said she would conduct a “zero-based review” of public spending, which will require departments to go through their budgets line by line. If departments do not deliver on one of the government’s priorities then the spending would be cut, she added.
Les Huckfield, a former Labour MP and MEP, said Reeves is not only using Thatcher-style language but is also harking back to the days of David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s government of 2010.
At that time, then-minister for the Cabinet office Francis Maude pledged to leave “no stone unturned” in the hunt for more savings at the centre of government.
He promised to “drive out inefficiency and unjustifiable costs” and set up the Efficiency and Reform Group to cut costs.
Asked about Reeves’s “iron fist” comment, Huckfield (below) told The National: “This is Thatcherite language but it’s a repeat of Cameron and Clegg in 2010.
“I think we are going to get a whole lot of this stuff [from Labour]. Pat McFadden made some peculiar comments yesterday about how we’ve got to treat government departments like start-ups – it was echoing the language of [Dominic] Cummings.
“Quite honestly across the board, they’re [the Labour Government] all saying in their own ways we’re going to come to all government departments and find every single way we can of either getting rid of services which they don’t think are very important or in some way reducing the cost of delivering services, which in many ways means outsourcing.
“So I think it’s actually much bigger than quoting Thatcher.”
McFadden, who oversees the Cabinet Office, over the weekend urged "disrupters" to join the civil service in a bid to make government "think a little bit more like a start-up", adding that officials need a greater "appetite for risk" to deliver public services more effectively.
Reeves was also accused of echoing Thatcher last year when she vowed to go after those who profited from the “carnival of waste” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The then-shadow chancellor said “we want our money back,” after announcing that a Labour government would appoint a “Covid corruption commissioner” to “chase down those who have ripped off the taxpayer”.
The comments appeared to be an echo of Thatcher, who won her four-year battle to reduce Britain’s payments to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1980 after famously declaring “I want my money back”.
The latest spending review announced by Reeves, which covers day-to-day spending between 2026 and 2029, requires departments to find efficiency and productivity savings of 5%.
Reeves will ask “challenge panels” of external experts including former executives from Lloyds, Barclays and the Co-operative Group to review the departmental plans.
They will work alongside experts from think tanks, the world of academia and others from the private sector to form an independent review of what spending is necessary.
The Treasury has also written to independent pay review bodies cautioning them against offering above-inflation pay rises.
SNP MP Stephen Gethins said Reeves was using “disrespectful” language towards public sector workers and Labour should instead turn their attention to issues like pensioner and child poverty.
Gethins said: "This kind of language is so disrespectful to those working in the public sector who do so much with limited resources.
"We know that public services are stretched and our NHS staff, teachers and others do so much to ensure that they deliver a value for money service.
"Maybe Labour could spend less time trying to sound like the Tories and more time on tackling the inter-generational problems made worse by Westminster cuts such as pensioner and child poverty."
The Treasury has been contacted for comment.
A UK Labour spokesperson said: “We’ll take no lectures from the SNP whose incompetence has left working Scots to foot the bill. We’re interrogating every line of public spending and getting a grip on waste.
“Labour has delivered the largest budget to the Scottish Government in the history of devolution. The SNP have the money, they have the powers - they are out of excuses.
“Labour is delivering a Plan for Change with investment and reform to deliver growth, put more money in people’s pockets, and rebuild Britain.”
