Budget latest: Chancellor confirms biggest tax hike budget in more than 30 years

The chancellor opens her historic budget speech by saying at the July 4 general election: “The country voted for change”, and Labor was given a mandate “to restore stability to our country and begin a decade of national renewal”.

Rachel Reeves continues to raise Labour’s slogans, saying they will “lay the foundations and deliver change through responsible leadership in the national interest”.

She goes on to say that the promised change ‘must be felt’, with ‘more pounds in people’s pockets’, a working NHS and ‘an economy that is growing and creating prosperity and opportunity for all’.

“The only way to stimulate economic growth is to invest, invest, invest again,” she says, adding that to realize investments they must “restore economic stability and turn the page of the past fourteen years.”

‘We will rebuild Britain’

Ms Reeves says Labor “rebuilt our country from the rubble of the Second World War”, did so again in 1997 and continues to do so today.

“And while this is the first budget to be presented by a Labor chancellor in more than fourteen years, it is the first budget to be presented by a woman in the history of our country,” she said.