PM insists Reeves in post for ‘many years’ amid calls to rule out tax hikes
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Sir Keir Starmer said Rachel Reeves will be Chancellor for “many, many years to come”, as he insisted the Government cannot “tax our way out” of the problems it faces. The Prime Minister offered strong support to Ms Reeves following recent questions over whether her future in Number 11 was guaranteed amid high Government borrowing costs.
He also sought to dampen talk of an emergency budget after Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch questioned if one was expected. Mrs Badenoch used her questions to suggest Ms Reeves was not qualified to manage the country’s finances and pressed Sir Keir to rule out any new tax rises this year.
After the Tory leader asked if the country could “afford four more years of his terrible judgments”, Sir Keir described Mrs Badenoch of serving up a “barrage of complete nonsense”. Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Mrs Badenoch opened by asking Sir Keir why anyone should “trust a word he says” over businesses who were saying “again and again that his budget means fewer jobs, lower growth and higher borrowing costs”.
Sir Keir said the global economy was experiencing “volatility” which was why he “took the tough and right decisions in the budget to get our finances back in order”. He told the Commons: “We had to deal with the £22 billion black hole that they left, made difficult cuts, raised taxes to invest in health, public services and housing, vital to stability, vital to growth, and we’ve got an ironclad commitment to our fiscal rules, and she will welcome, no doubt, the inflation figures from this morning.
