Utter shambles as Rachel Reeves’s £26bn tax-raising Budget is leaked | Politics | News
It didn’t seem likely that Rachel Reeves’ budget would get any worse, but it did. Details of his proposals, including tax rises worth £26bn, were leaked more than half an hour before he stood up to announce his plans in the House of Commons. This was not one of those “leaks” that involved deliberately giving some details to journalists in advance. We’ve seen this happen a lot in recent weeks.
What happened today was a real mistake. The analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury’s official watchdog, was mistakenly published just before noon, around 40 minutes before the Chancellor’s speech. It showed Rachel Reeves would impose tax increases of £26bn, taking them to a historic record. There will be a tax raid on pension contributions worth £4.7bn, a £1.4bn pay-per-mile tax on electric cars and a £1.1bn gambling tax.
The two-child benefit limit is planned to be removed by 2029-30 at an estimated cost of £3bn, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Rachel Reeves’ Budget will extend current freezes on personal tax thresholds for a further three years, until 2030-31, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s published forecast document.
Shameful. But more than that, it’s really important. This leakage could actually make Britain poorer and increase the likelihood of further tax increases.
This is because the UK has so much debt that the Treasury has to constantly worry about what those who lend us money (bond markets) think. If they trust that the Government is well run, it becomes cheaper for us to borrow money.
But if bond markets think Britain is in shambles, our Prime Minister is incompetent and the Treasury cannot be trusted, then bonds become more expensive. But we have to borrow whether we want to or not. This is the situation that England finds itself in.
Speaking today, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chaotic leak showed the “chaos” in the Government and insisted Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was the ultimate culprit.
But unfortunately it’s not just Labor that looks foolish today. This is the UK as a whole and that means we all pay.
