Sir Keir Starmer has warned that he cannot rule out further tax raids due to “unforeseen” circumstances.
The Prime Minister insisted it is not his “plan” to clobber Brits with more rises. But he pointed to the pandemic and the Ukraine war as examples of unexpected global events that could force him to change course. Taxes were hiked by £40 billion at the Budget in October, with the lion’s share coming from a £25 billion decision to increase employer national insurance contributions.
The PM said: “We took really tough decisions in the Budget and we did them early, and we stabilised the economy.
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“And that was tough and I don’t want to in any way suggest we will be coming back for more, because that isn’t the plan.”
He continued: “What I can’t do is say to you there are no circumstances unforeseen in the future that wouldn’t lead to any changes at all.
“Because if you just look at Covid and the Ukraine situation, everybody knows there are things that we can’t see now.
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“But I can tell you our intention was to do the tough stuff in that Budget and not to keep coming back.
“So businesses can know, well, look, it’s tough but fair, but at least we know now with certainty and we can plan.”
He said he wants to see living standards rise “straight away” as he tried to sell his “plan for change”, which involves six “milestones” to judge the Government by.
And he denied that things would get worse before they got better.
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He said: “I want people to feel better off straight away – feel better off in the sense of more money in their pocket, feel better off because they’ve got a secure job that they know is guaranteed to give them the money they need.”
The six pledges, unveiled on Thursday, cover the economy, the NHS, housebuilding, policing, pre-school education and green energy. Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: “Keir Starmer has already raised taxes to historic levels.
“Now he claims he wants to give business certainty but he can’t answer a very basic question – will he or won’t he raise more taxes.”