BBC Question Time bosses have been forced to edit the show after Fiona Bruce made a blunder on live TV.
The presenter insisted Labour hadn’t mentioned the phrase “working people” in relation to raising National Insurance in its manifesto – even though the party had. She made the claim as she grilled a Labour minister on speculation that employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) could be increased at the Budget.
During a debate with Trade Minister Douglas Alexander, Ms Bruce said Labour had been “completely clear” they wouldn’t put up National Insurance but insisted they hadn’t said this was only in relation to working people. “There wasn’t a paragraph that said ‘only for employees,’” she said.
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BBC)
Mr Alexander responded: “We consistently said we’re not raising taxes on working people.” Ms Bruce did not back down: “Should we be in a position where National Insurance contributions are raised for employers, in principle surely that is a breach of your manifesto?” Mr Alexander replied that voters would “understand the distinction between working people and businesses”.
After the show went out live, the official BBC Question Time X/ Twitter account posted online: “On the live iPlayer version of Question Time tonight, we said that in their 2024 General Election manifesto, Labour didn’t mention the phrase ‘working people’ in relation to raising National Insurance. We are happy to clarify that they did and accordingly we have taken it out of the BBC1 edition of the programme.”
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BBC)
It comes after Mr Starmer gave his strongest hint yet that employers NICs could be hiked at the Budget on October 30. The PM refused to rule out the tax rise after being directly asked about it amid days of swirling rumours that the Government is planning for tax hikes.
Pressed on whether the vow not to rise National Insurance applied to employers, Mr Starmer told BBC Breakfast on Tuesday: “We were very clear in the manifesto that we wouldn’t be increasing tax on working people and we expressly said that that was income tax, that was NICs etc. So we set that out in the manifesto.”
The Tories have attempted to claim that hiking NICs would be a breach of its manifesto pledge. This is despite themselves having pointed out during the election that they had only ruled out raising employee national insurance (not employers). Labour promised in its manifesto not to raise taxes on “working people”.