Minister faces brutal Sky News grilling however insists ‘we have all obtained PTSD from Liz Truss’

A top Labour minister has said Britain has “PTSD from Liz Truss” as he faced a grilling over the impact of Labour’s first Budget.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones attempted to urge calm, saying “markets always respond to budgets in the normal way”.

“There’s a lot of new information about the economy and the nation’s finances presented to Parliament, and it’s normal for markets to respond,” he said.

The senior minister also conceded that the massive Budget tax rise in national insurance contributions (NICs) for employers would impact “working people” as he was quizzed on Sky News.

Challenged on whether it would impact workers, Mr Jones said: “Yes, but the question in the manifesto, the promise in the manifesto, was not to increase the rate of tax that employees pay in their payslip.

“It says that we make a promise to working people, that’s people who go to work and get a payslip, that we will not increase income tax or national insurance.” Speaking after the Budget, Ms Reeves also admitted the impact of the tax hike may make wage rises smaller in the future.

Mr Jones rejected any assumption market reaction is anything like the turmoil inflicted on the economy by 49-day PM Liz Truss with her disastrous mini-Budget.

It comes after the Chancellor Rachel Reeves hiked taxes by over £40billion and loosened borrowing rules in an attempt to fix crumbling public services. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has welcomed the Budget. But the scale of extra borrowing – around £32 billion a year on average – saw yields on government bonds increase as the market responded to the Chancellor’s plans.

Mr Jones later added: “I think we’ve all got PTSD from Liz Truss and just let’s compare the two different scenarios, because they’re very, very different. So, under Liz Truss, as we saw, they sacked the permanent secretary, they ignored the independent Office for Budget Responsibility.

Asked on LBC if he the markets would take fright after Labour’s Budget, similar to what happened after Ms Truss’s mini-budget, he added: “No, I don’t, because we have got strong and robust fiscal rules in place. One of the reasons it is very different from the Liz Truss period is we have got the stability rule which means that day-to-day spending of public services will be paid for by tax receipts, not borrowing money each and every month as the last government did.”

“They announced £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts and said they were only just getting started. And then the market went mad and we all know what happened. Completely different in contrast to now.”