Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has refused to commit to cutting national insurance or income tax.
In a speech delivered in a Rolls Royce factory today (May 28) Reeves refused to say whether an incoming Labour government would cut taxes.
Reeves continuously repeated that although she wanted taxes to be lower she reiterated that Labour would not announce any cuts without knowing where the money would be coming from to fund them.
The speech came after 121 chief executives signed a letter endorsing Labour’s economic plans which Reeves said showed that Labour was the “natural partner of business”.
This included Charles Randell, former chair of the Financial Conduct Authority and Charles Harman, former vice-chairman of JP Morgan Cazenove.
However it was noted by a journalist in attendance at the speech, that none of the business figures were from FTSE 100 companies.
Emergency Budget
Reeves also refused to answer whether Labour would call an emergency Budget if elected after multiple probes from journalists.
She said that she would not deliver a fiscal event without an OBR forecast which would need to take place 10 weeks before.
Reeves highlighted throughout her speech that every policy in Labour’s manifesto would be “fully funded and fully costed, no ifs and no buts”.
She also said 14 years of “chaos and decline” under the Tory government has caused taxpayers to “pay more and more and while getting less and less” in return.
Reeves also pledged to have national debt falling by the end of parliament despite the IFS warning that for the next government, getting debt to fall as a share of national income will be more difficult to achieve than in any parliament since at least the 1950s.
Yesterday, Labour leader Keir Starmer said the party’s pledge to deliver ‘economic stability’ will allow for inflation, taxes and mortgages to remain low.
He said: “Taxes are higher than at any time since the war. Chaos is hitting every working family to the tune of £5,000, and a prime minister prepared to do it all over again. He [Sunak] says he wants to get rid of national insurance. £46bn, that is currently used on your pension and the NHS and he’s not prepared to say how he will fund it.
“That means, at this election either your pension is under threat, or he’s prepared to blow the economy up all over again. He hasn’t learned a thing. Working people need stability. They want things to improve, they want things to move on, they want change.
“But they expect you to take care of the public finances as well because if you lose control of the economy, it’s working people who pay the price. Liz Truss lost control of the economy. I am not prepared to let a Labour government ever do that to working people.”
alina.khan@ft.com
