Chancellor Rachel Reeves has spared construction capital spending cuts and managed to find a further £13bn over the Parliament to support growth-enhancing spending on infrastructure, housing, and defence.

Coming on top of the £100 billion uplift announced at Autumn Budget, this will deliver projects needed to catalyse private investment, boost growth and drive forward the UK’s modern industrial strategy – lime unlocking the potential of the Oxford Cambridge Growth Corridor, said Reeves.

Much of the extra spending will go to defence investment. Although she said there would be some defence dividend for construction in plans to upgrade military family homes and modernise Portsmouth’s naval base.

Infrastructure and housing will see an extra £4.65bn, mostly loaded into the later years of the Parliament.

This includes an extra £2bn paid down in advance to avoid a cliff edge in affordable housing already flagged up yesterday.

The Spring Spending Review also revealed the Government expects to raise around £645m in three years from the new Building Safety Levy being imposed on housing developers from October 2026.

Full details of how spending will be allocated across the key Whitehall spending department will be revealed on 11 June when there could still be winners and losers.

Reeves also announced economic watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, has estimated that the planning reforms included in the government’s National Planning and Policy Framework would lead to 170,000 additional homes built over the forecast period.

This alone would increase the level of real GDP by 0.2% by 2029-30, adding £6.8bn to the economy, and by over 0.4% in 2034-35.

Reeve said this proved the Government was on course to deliver 305,000 homes a year by 29/30.