Rachel Reeves has been humiliated by the Office for Budget Responsibility as the UK’s economic forecaster said her promise to secure economic growth has been blown apart. Speaking in the Commons this lunchtime, the Chancellor was forced to admit that the OBR has halved its economic growth expectations for the economy this year.

She told MPs that the previous 2025 forecast of 2% GDP growth has been slashed to just 1%. Ms Reeves added that the UK’s growth forecast is now not set to rise above 2% at any point during this parliament. She outlined that the OBR now expects GDP growth of 1.9% in 2026, 1.8% in 2027, 1.7% in 2028 and 1.8% in 2029.

The Tories immediately erupted, with shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith blasting: “We’ve seen confirmation today of halving of UK growth forecast and that the Chancellor has missed her own fiddled fiscal rules by £14 billion.”

The Chancellor was also slammed just minutes into her spring statement, with the Conservatives accusing her of repeating the exact same mistakes made by her budget last autumn.

Taking to the Commons this lunchtime, the Chancellor confirmed her cuts are set to restore her so-called ‘fiscal headroom’.

In last year’s Budget, Ms Reeves gave herself a mere £9 billion allowance to buffer international shocks to the British economy and prevent her going into a spending deficit.

However this was criticised as being far too small, after it was entirely wiped out by changes to borrowing costs and Donald Trump’s economic instability.

In the Commons this afternoon, the Chancellor revealed that without making cuts, the OBR forecast she would have gone from a £9 billion surplus to a £4.1 billion deficit.

Due to the cuts she is announcing, she has managed to restore her original fiscal headroom.

However, the Tories have slammed this as yet more shortsightedness by the Chancellor.

Just minutes into the spring statement, the Conservatives’ shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith warned: “The Chancellor has learned nothing from the failure to provide enough headroom at her first Budget.”

Ms Reeves told MPs: “This Labour Government was elected to bring change to our country, provide security to working people and deliver a decade of national renewal.”

“That work began in July and I’m proud of what we have achieved in the last nine months.”

She cited cutting interest rates, bringing down waiting lists and increasing the national minimum wage as her biggest achievements since coming to power nine months ago.

However she insisted the current economic problems are not her doing, but a result of international pressures.

She insisted her fiscal rules are non-negotiable, dismissing calls by left-wing Labour MPs to borrow more money instead of cutting welfare.

She said her fiscal rules are the “embodiment of the government’s unwavering commitment to bring stability to the economy and uncertainty to British people”.

“There is nothing progressive, nothing Labour, about working people paying the price for economic irresponsibility.”

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“Voters knew that I would never take risks with the public finances. We must earn that trust every single day.”

The Conservatives’ shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said the spring statement has brought Ms Reeves to a “cold hard reckoning”.

He blasted: “Just as the OECD, the BoE, and now the OBR have stated, growth has been halved this year.”

“Inflation that was down to 2% under the last conservative government will now be running at twice the level forecast under ourselves.”

He said all this economic gloom was entirely down to “her choices”.