PMQs: Starmer won’t repeat pledge to unfreeze income tax thresholds
Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of “plotting stealth taxes” after he failed to repeat Rachel Reeves’ pledge to unfreeze income tax thresholds.
The Prime Minister was pushed on his economic plans ahead of next week’s spring statement – which Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch branded an “emergency budget”.
During Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday, the Tory leader called on Sir Keir to repeat his Chancellor’s previous pledge to unfreeze income tax thresholds.
The effect of keeping tax bands – at which people pay higher rates on their income – at the same level is known as fiscal drag, as it ‘drags’ more taxpayers upwards as inflation rises.
Badenoch told MPs in the House of Commons: “Winter fuel payments have been snatched. The jobs tax is hammering everyone from businesses to charities.
“The Chancellor promised a ‘once-in-a-parliament’ budget; that she would not come back for more. And in that budget, she said there will be no extension of the freeze in income tax thresholds.
“Ahead of the emergency budget will [the Prime Minister] repeat the commitment that she made?”
Unfreeze tax thresholds
It came after Reeves told the House in October last year she was “keeping every single promise on tax I made in our manifesto, so there will be no extension of the freeze in income tax and national insurance thresholds beyond decisions made by the previous government”.
But in his answer to Badenoch, Starmer declined to repeat her commitment.
He said: “She’s got such pre-scripted questions she can’t actually adapt them to the answers that I’m giving.”
The Prime Minister joked: “I think she now calls herself a Conservative realist. Well, I’m realistic about the Conservatives.”
And he added: “The reality is they left open borders and she was the cheerleader. They crashed the economy. Mortgages went through the roof. The NHS was left on its knees and they hollowed out the armed forces.
“This government has already delivered two million extra NHS appointments, school breakfast clubs, record returns of people who shouldn’t be here, and a fully funded increase in our defense spending. That is the difference that a Labor government makes.”
‘Stealth taxes’?
Commenting after PMQs, a Conservative spokesperson said: “The Prime Minister just failed to repeat the Chancellor’s pledge not to extend the freeze on income tax.
“The only logical conclusion is that at next week’s emergency budget Labour are plotting stealth taxes to drag more people into paying higher tax rates.”
During a briefing with journalists, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman was asked why he didn’t repeat the pledge not to extend the freeze on income tax thresholds, and whether the government still planned to unfreeze them.
He said: “I think as the Chancellor has said repeatedly we delivered a once-in-a-parliament Budget to wipe the slate clean, put the public finances back on a stable footing and get growth back into the UK economy… we’ve taken the necessary decisions to deliver economic stability.”
Pressed again, he added: “You’ve got the Chancellor’s language, I don’t have anything to add to that. It’s obviously for the Chancellor not for me to comment on.”
Asked if the government was ruling out extending the freeze, he insisted: “I’m just saying it’s for the Chancellor to comment on tax policy, not me.”