Sir Keir Starmer has warned that he cannot rule out further tax raids because of “unforeseen” circumstances.
In an interview with BBC Breakfast, the Prime Minister said it is not his “plan” to impose more tax rises but pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war as examples of unexpected global events that could force him to change course.
Sir Keir said: “What I can’t do is say to you there are no circumstances unforeseen in the future that wouldn’t lead to any changes at all.
“Because if you just look at Covid and the Ukraine situation, everybody knows there are things that we can’t see now.
“But I can tell you our intention was to do the tough stuff in that Budget and not to keep coming back… it’s tough but fair, but at least we know now with certainty and we can plan.”
It comes after Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, told a Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference at the end of November that she would not be “coming back with more borrowing or more taxes”.
However, Sir Keir refused to repeat this pledge on Nov 27 when he was asked to do so by Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition, at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Asked on Friday whether there will be any more tax increases on businesses or people during the rest of the parliament, Sir Keir said: “We took really tough decisions in the Budget and we did them early and we stabilised the economy and that was tough.
“I don’t want to in any way suggest that we are going to keep coming back for more because that isn’t the plan.”
Pressed on whether that meant no more tax rises, he continued: “We did the tough stuff in order to stabilise because what individuals and particularly businesses have said to me is ‘look, do the tough stuff but then we need a degree of certainty, we need to know that things aren’t going to materially change’. So that is the approach we have taken.”
Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said: “Keir Starmer has already raised taxes to historic levels. Now he claims he wants to give business certainty but he can’t answer a very basic question – will he or won’t he raise more taxes.”
Ms Reeves raised taxes by £40 billion at the Budget on Oct 30, with the lion’s share of the increase coming from a £25 billion decision to increase employer National Insurance contributions.
She raised additional billions through increases to capital gains tax, inheritance tax, stamp duty, alcohol duty, tobacco duty, air passenger duty and other measures such as means testing for pensioner winter fuel payments.
Sir Keir attempted to brush off a question about his approval rating plummeting after Labour’s general election victory. At the end of October, Sir Keir scored -38 in a More in Common survey, dropping from highs of 11+ in July.
Asked why he believed he was “so unpopular”, Sir Keir said: “Firstly, I will be judged at the end of the five-year term on whether we have delivered what we said we will deliver and that all that matters to me. That is what gets me up in the morning, that is why I came into politics – to bring about that change.
“The second thing I would say is this. We have inherited a real mess and we have decided to take tough decisions to deal with it – to take it head on – that £22 billion black hole in the economy.
“I wasn’t prepared to pretend that it wasn’t there, to walk past it to make it feel good. So we took the tough decisions and that is tough but we did it early.”
Sir Keir also told BBC Breakfast that living standards would not get worse before they got better, adding he wanted to see people feel better off “straight away”.
Pressed on whether he thought living standards would fall in the coming years even if they rose over the course of the whole Parliament, Sir Keir Starmer said: “No, that isn’t what I expect to happen.
“And the milestone that we set out… will be measured at the end of the Parliament, but I want people to feel better off straight away – feel better off in the sense of more money in their pocket, feel better off because they’ve got a secure job that they know is guaranteed to give them the money they need.”
Adding that the Government had already given a pay rise to three million of the lowest-paid workers, he said: “I want others to feel the difference as quickly as possible.”
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