BBC Verify Live: Spending review unpacked and Gaza aid chaos

Phil Leake
BBC Verify data journalist

We can expect plenty of big numbers from Chancellor Rachel Reeves when she delivers her Spending Review at around 12:30 BST.

At BBC Verify, there are a few key questions we often ask when reporting large sums of money. They include:

Over how long?

Governments will sometimes use the largest number available to them when discussing spending commitments.

For example, the government has pledged £86bn in investment spending for science and technology. This figure is the total for four years – the annual amount will reach £22.5bn by 2029-30.

What is the trade-off?

The chancellor has set herself a limited amount of money to allocate, which means that decisions to increase spending often involve a sacrifice elsewhere.

The NHS is set to receive one of the biggest uplifts in spending – £30bn by 2028-29 – but this will likely come at the cost of some other departments’ budgets, continuing a trend seen over the past 15 years.

Think tank The Resolution Foundation estimates that day-to-day health spending per person has risen by 30% since 2009-10, while several other departments have seen similar sized cuts.

How does it compare historically?

Another commitment is to increase defence spending from 2.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) to 2.5% by 2027 – worth around an extra £5bn a year on average.

Over the long-term, the defence budget has been declining: in the mid-1950s, it was equivalent to almost 8% of GDP.