Rachel Reeves vows today that she will never ‘play fast and loose with your money’ – and insists Labour‘s tax-and-spend binges are a thing of the past.
The Shadow Chancellor uses her first intervention in the election campaign to make a direct appeal to Daily Mail readers.
Writing in this newspaper, Ms Reeves says she will be guided by a Thatcher-style commitment to ‘sound money’ if she becomes Britain’s first female Chancellor in July.
Turning her back on the profligacy of Labour’s past, she writes: ‘I will never play fast and loose with your money… I believe in sound money and public spending that is kept under control.
‘I know how important it is that whoever is running the public finances has an iron grip on them.’
Rachel Reeves campaigns at Blackpool Cricket Club on April 5
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor leaves Francis Crick Institute after announcing the London Growth Plan on April 3
Ms Reeves explicitly rules out a return to a traditional Labour tax-and-spend approach – and even hints she could eventually cut taxes for ‘working people’.
The former Bank of England economist insists that Labour will not try to soak successful businesses and crush entrepreneurship, arguing that the private sector is the key to generating the economic growth Labour needs to pay for its plans.
Ms Reeves savages the Tories’ economic record since 2010, and warns that giving them another term would be like ‘giving a box of matches back to the arsonists who burnt the house down’.
She also hints that Labour is preparing a major package of welfare reform to tackle the epidemic of worklessness that has seen the number of people inactive because of ill health soar to 2.8 million. It comes as:
- Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom has joined an exodus of Tory MPs, with a record 78 declaring they will stand down at the election;
- Boris Johnson predicted the election will be ‘much closer than currently forecast’ as voters take fright at the idea of electing ‘the most dangerous and Left-wing Labour prime minister since the 1970s’;
- Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was expelled from the party after confirming he will fight his Islington North seat as an independent;
- Labour education spokesman Bridget Phillipson hinted that the party could increase university tuition fees from their current level of £9,250 a year;
- Sir Keir Starmer vowed to press ahead with a controversial tax raid on private schools ‘straight away’ if Labour wins;
- Sir Keir said he was seeking ten years in power to push through a programme of ‘national renewal’;
- Rishi Sunak said he was ‘pumped up’ for the election campaign after a whirlwind tour of the four nations of the UK.
The Conservatives have targeted the economy as the key election battleground, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt saying Treasury analysis has identified a £38 billion black hole in Labour’s spending plans, potentially leaving the average working household facing a £2,100 tax bombshell over four years.
Labour has so far announced only modest plans for raising taxes, including levying VAT on private school fees, increasing the windfall tax on the energy giants and a tax raid on private equity firms. Mr Hunt said tax would be the ‘big dividing line’ at the election, with the Tories committed to cutting them and Labour raising taxes ‘as sure as night follows day’.
Mr Sunak is expected to use the Tory manifesto to pledge further tax cuts, including a long-term ambition to abolish National Insurance, which Mr Hunt has already slashed by a third, delivering a £900 tax cut to the average worker.
Sir Keir yesterday refused to rule out further tax increases if Labour wins the election. Asked to confirm there would be ‘no additional tax rises’, the Labour leader said: ‘To be clear, where there are tax rises, we’ve set that out and we’ve also set out what the money will be used for.’
Michael Gove has joined an exodus of Tory MPs, with a record 78 declaring they will stand down at the election
Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson leaving Downing Street to attend a cabinet meeting in 2020
Treasury minister Bim Afolami accused Sir Keir of using ‘his first media round of the campaign to confirm that Labour would raise taxes’.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said tight public finances meant that whichever party wins the election will have to impose deep cuts in public spending, raise taxes or both.
Director Paul Johnson said: ‘Money is tight. Public services are creaking, taxes are at historically high levels, and both parties are hemmed in by their very clear pledges to get debt falling. It is only falling, marginally, on current forecasts, because tax rises and spending cuts are already baked into baseline forecasts.’