Leader of the opposition Rishi Sunak spent most of chancellor Rachel Reeves’ speech on his phone, presumably with the calculator app open.
His riposte to Reeves centred upon "broken promise after broken promise", accusing the Labour party of misleading the public by fiddling with debt figures, increasing unfunded borrowing, and raising taxes on ‘working people’ despite pledging not to in their election manifesto.
The tax rises he referred to are predominantly attacking Labour’s decision to raise the national insurance contributions of employers, not employees, to 15 per cent, up from 13.8 per cent – though of course the trickle-down effect on workers is likely to cause higher business costs and thus lower wages for workers.
There are also rises to capital gains tax, stamp duty on second homes, and the abolition of the ‘non-dom’ regime, although fuel duty cuts will be maintained for another year and the weekly carer’s allowance raised.
Such hikes led Sunak to reiterate his criticism of the Labour manifesto: “You name it, they will tax it.”
Though the Conservative fury must be put in the context of Reeves’ prior address, which accused the last government of hiding spending data from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
The forecasts in the March 2024 Budget used by the Conservatives would have been "materially different", she said, had the government fully disclosed the state of their finances.
And the opposition leader himself was not exempt from Reeves’ censure either, after she quipped that her plans to increase passenger duties on private jets by 50 per cent which included flights, "to, say, California?”.
Throughout the afternoon, Labour, the Treasury Select Committee, and the Liberal Democrats all attacked the previous administration for leaving an ‘appalling inheritance’.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said the British people had endured ‘one of the most damaging governments in our country’s history’.
