LONDON — British Treasury chief Rachel Reeves raised taxes Wednesday by around 40 billion pounds (US$52 billion) to plug a hole she claims to have identified in the public finances and fund the U.K.’s cash-starved public services, in a beefy budget that could set the political tone for years to come.

In the Labour Party’s first budget since regaining power after 14 years in July, Reeves also changed the U.K.’s debt rules — a move that will allow the government to borrow more to, as she explained, “invest, invest, invest,” but which opposition figures described as a “fiddling of the books.”