The Office for Budget Responsibility has halved the UK growth forecast for 2025 from 2% to 1%, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said.

It comes as the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, also announced that a voluntary redundancy scheme is set to launch for civil servants.

The chancellor announced this as part of her mission to “make government leaner”, delivering £3.5bn in “day-to-day savings by 2029-30”.

Ms Reeves previously said she is “confident” that 10,000 civil service jobs can be axed after numbers ballooned during the pandemic.

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