Starmer and Reeves row back from ‘no more borrowing or taxes’ pledge
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister said it was not possible to write five years of budgets in advance.
Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves refused to guarantee there would be no further tax rises under Labour just days after the Chancellor told business chiefs she would not repeat her Budget hikes.
Ms Reeves appeared to row back from her earlier pledge, stressing that she was “not going to write five years of budgets” now.
Sir Keir echoed that comment in the House of Commons when challenged by Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch during tetchy exchanges at Prime Minister’s Questions.
At the Confederation of British Industry conference on Monday, the Chancellor sought to reassure business leaders there would be no repeat of the £40 billion tax hikes announced in her first Budget, insisting that the public finances had been put on a stable footing and services would now have to live within their means.
“I’m really clear, I’m not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes,” she said.
But asked on Wednesday how she could guarantee that, she told broadcasters: “I’m not going to write five years’ worth of budgets in the first few months as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
“But what I can now say is that we have wiped the slate clean on their economic and fiscal mismanagement of the previous government.”
In the Commons, Mrs Badenoch: “At the CBI conference on Monday, the Chancellor said – and I quote – ‘I’m clear, I’m not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes’.
“I know that telling the truth to this House is important to the Prime Minister, so will he repeat his Chancellor’s pledge now?”
Sir Keir replied: “We set out our position at the Budget, which was just set out. We’re fixing the foundations. We’re dealing with the £22 billion black hole that they left.
“I’m not going to write the next five years of budgets here at this despatch box but we said we wouldn’t hit the payslips of working people. We’ve passed the Budget. We’ve invested in the future, and we’ve kept that promise.”
After the exchanges, Mrs Badenoch said on social media the Prime Minister’s refusal to repeat the Chancellor’s promise showed “this is just the beginning… they are coming back for more”.
At Prime Minister’s Questions the Tory leader called for Sir Keir to resign, pointing to a petition signed by around 2.8 million people calling for a general election.
Sir Keir hit back, saying: “She talks about a petition, we had a massive petition on July 4 in this country. We spent years taking our party from a party of protest to a party of government, they are hurtling in the opposite direction.”
Later on Wednesday it was confirmed that the petition would be debated in Westminster Hall in Parliament after Christmas on January 6. Parliament considers all petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures for a debate.
Mrs Badenoch described the Prime Minister’s response to the petition question as “nonsense” and appeared to use the concerns of a biscuit company to aim a jibe at Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.
She said: “Following his Budget, the head of McVitie’s has said that it has been harder to understand what the case for investment in the UK is.
“So while the Prime Minister has been hobnobbing in Brazil, businesses have been struggling to digest his Budget. Isn’t it the case that the Employment Rights Bill shows that it is not only the ginger nut that is causing him problems?”
Sir Keir defended his attendance at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro and accused Mrs Badenoch of “carping from the sidelines”.
