JOHN McDonnell today calls for the Chancellor to end the “financial conjuring tricks” and use Monday’s Budget to “stump up the cash” and bring about a genuine end to eight years of austerity.

The Shadow Chancellor will use a pre-Budget speech in London to set out Labour’s key demands for what is expected to be the last Budget before Brexit, calling on Philip Hammond to acknowledge the “scale of the hardship eight years of Tory austerity has inflicted on our people and our communities”.

Alongside his address to representatives of businesses, trade unions and charities, Labour will publish a dossier detailing the extent and impact of Conservative cuts and what it would take for the Tories to truly end austerity.

In his speech, Mr McDonnell will call on the Chancellor to take “large-scale action in this Budget to end austerity, not present some vague promises for the future or a few financial conjuring tricks”.

He will point out Theresa May, as she did again yesterday at PMQs, insists the age of austerity is over but the Budget will show if she is true to her word.

The Shadow Chancellor will point out:

*warnings the NHS is facing a winter crisis even more severe than last year, which was the worst on record;

*75 per cent of post-2015 cuts to social security are yet to come and the Universal Credit roll-out risks leaving the poorest families £200 a month worse off and

*the social care system is facing a £2.5 billion funding gap with more than one million elderly people not getting the care they need.

“Our schools, councils and social care system are crying out for investment. If austerity is really over, it is time for Phillip Hammond to stump up the cash,” Mr McDonnell will declare.

He will claim deficit reduction has only been achieved by shifting the burden away from central government and onto the shoulders of head teachers, hospital managers and local councillors while jobs growth has been based on low paid, insecure, zero-hour contracts.

“The Tory strategy has created a low wage, low investment and low productivity economy, unfit to meet the two key challenges of our era: the need for a fourth industrial revolution and climate change.”

He will add: “Change is needed and change is coming.”

In other pre-Budget developments:

*Scottish Conservative MP Paul Masterton called on the Chancellor to extend the freeze on duty for scotch whisky for another year, saying: “Scotch whisky is an export powerhouse for the UK…It is vital the UK Government does all it can to provide certainty and support to this vital Scottish industry as we leave the EU”;

*the SNP’s Alan Brown called on Mr Hammond to rule out any tax hike on the North Sea oil and gas industry, saying: “The last thing the industry needs is yet another Tory tax raid”;

*the Resolution Foundation think-tank said the Chancellor would need to boost spending by £31bn a year within the next four years to end austerity and

*in a report, the Commons Home Affairs Committee urges the Government to prioritise spending on policing in the Budget, warning that without additional funding for police forces in England, there will be dire consequences for public safety and criminal justice.