Revised Government spending plans for 2025/26

What are Estimates?

One of Parliament’s longest standing functions is the consideration and authorisation of the government’s spending plans, requiring the government to obtain parliamentary consent before spending public money. These are presented to Parliament in documents known as “Estimates”.

Estimates typically take place twice per financial year:

• May to June: Main Estimates (initial departmental spending plans)
• February to March: Supplementary Estimates (revised final departmental spending plans)

What are Supplementary Estimates?

Supplementary Estimates show the changes to this financial year’s budgets which the government is seeking for each department. They are divided into separate limits for the following categories:

• Current, day-to-day spending (also known as resource): this is spending on staff and other running costs, on goods and services and grants.
• Capital (investment) spending: this is spending covering the purchase and sale of assets, loans and capital grants.

The changes are then further divided into two more categories:

• Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL): spending subject to fixed limits, based broadly on the plans outlined for 2025/26 in the 2025 Spending Review and Autumn Budget.
• Annually Managed Expenditure (AME): less predictable and more demand-led spending.

Changes to the cash block grants proposed to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are also included under a separate heading.

If Parliament is content, these spending plans will be given legal effect by a new Supply and Appropriation Act before the end of the financial year, allowing access to additional funds approved.

What has changed compared with the initial 2025/26 budget?

The Supplementary Estimates contain requests for additional spending (relative to the initial budgets for this year) that amount to the following totals:

• Resource DEL rises from £543.8 billion to £580.7 billion (+6.8%)
• Capital DEL rises from £129.5 billion to £130.7 billion (+1.0%)
• Resource AME rises from £365.1 billion to £392.1 billion (+7.4%)
• Capital AME falls from £70.5 billion to £58.8 billion (-16.5%)

The changes contained in this supplementary estimate are significant by historical standards, with changes to combined DEL representing the fourth largest overall increase in spending since 2016/17.