Politics latest: Starmer refuses to say he will keep manifesto promises on tax | Politics News
Kemi Badenoch opens her questioning of Sir Keir Starmer by asking if he still stands by his pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance, or VAT.
The prime minister replies: “I’m glad that the leader of the opposition is now talking about the economy.”
He says retail sales are “higher than expected”, inflation is “lower than expected”, and the stock market is “at an all-time high”.
He does not answer Badenoch’s question directly, and simply says: “The budget is on 26 November and we will lay out our plans.”
Badenoch then says the PM replied “yes” when she asked the same question in July, and asks what has changed since then.
Starmer replied that no PM or chancellor “will ever set out their plans” ahead of a budget.
He goes on to blame the Tories for the expected downgrade in productivity, saying they “did even more damage to the economy than previously thought”.
The Tory leader asks why the PM won’t implement her plan to scrap stamp duty, and he replies: “Why didn’t they do it then in 14 years in office?”
He then hits out at the Tories for austerity, the “botched Brexit deal”, and the Truss mini-budget, saying: “We’ll take no lectures from them on the economy.”
Starmer goes on to say that there will be “no return to austerity… no return to the instability of their mad borrowing spree, and we’ll end the unfairness and low growth that squeezed living standards for working people”.
Badenoch defends her party’s economic record, and then asks the PM if he will work with them to welfare spending rather than raising taxes, but Starmer does not answer the question, and attacks the Tories’ economic record.
The Tory leader responds by attacking the government’s employment rights legislation that she says “will cripple businesses”, but the PM says the UK had “the highest growth in the G7 in the first six months of this year”.
He then attacks the credibility of the Tories’ plan to cut spending by £47bn, but Badenoch hits back, saying the PM “makes stuff up”.
