Sir Keir Starmer has failed to rule further tax rises before the next general election – despite Rachel Reeves claiming otherwise less than two weeks ago.
The prime minister said he has no plan to hike taxes further, but could not rule out changes in unforeseen circumstances such as Covid or the war in Ukraine.
Last week, the chancellor explicitly ruled out further tax rises in an address to the CBI, where she told business leaders: “I’m really clear, I’m not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes.”
Since then, the party has stumbled through speeches and media interviews with senior figures refusing to repeat the promise.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Friday, less than two weeks after the chancellor ruled out further tax rises, the prime minister said he can’t say there are “no circumstances unforeseen in the future that wouldn’t lead to any changes at all”.
“We took really tough decisions in the Budget and we did them early, and we stabilised the economy.
“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 said.
“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.
“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.”
As MPs voted through the controversial Budget increase in employer national insurance contributions on Tuesday, shadow chancellor Mel Stride pressed Ms Reeves on whether she would stick by her pledge at the CBI conference.
Ms Reeves replied only that the government will “never have to repeat a Budget like that”, which saw the government unveil £40bn worth of tax hikes.
And asked on Wednesday whether she could guarantee the promise she made earlier that week, she told broadcasters: “I’m not going to write five years’ worth of budgets in the first few months as chancellor of the Exchequer.
“But what I can now say is that we have wiped the slate clean on their economic and fiscal mismanagement of the previous government.”
Sir Keir had a similar exchange with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch in the Commons, who asked about the possibility of tax rises - to which the prime minister repeated Ms Reeves’ refusal to “write the next five years of budgets”.
After the exchange, Ms Badenoch said on social media the prime minister’s refusal to repeat the chancellor’s promise showed “this is just the beginning… they are coming back for more”.
The back and forth over tax rises comes as Sir Keir attempts to reset the agenda, giving a speech on Thursday where he outlined his “plan for change”.
He made improving living standards a key target as he outlined the next phase of his government on Thursday, saying he wanted to see real household disposable income rise across the country by the next election.
But on Friday, Sir Keir said he wanted to see improvements sooner than that, denying that things would get worse before they got better.
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.”
