𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Rachel Reeves has been slammed after announcing a tax hike on taxi fares. A 20% VAT increase on private hire vehicle services prevents ride-sharing taxi apps from “exploiting an administrative scheme intended for tour operators in order to pay a lower rate of VAT than others”, the Chancellor announced in her Budget last week. Services like Uber and Bolt will be impacted by the change, with experts suggesting that customers will be faced with 15% higher fares. Adding £2 to £3 to a £12 journey will bring in around £700million by 2027-28, officials say.

Now, the policy has been criticised by Silver Voices, an independent, UK-wide membership organisation representing older people, which suggests it will inevitably harm people’s welfare. Its Director, Dennis Reed, said: “Many older people have the choice between taxis and isolation because public transport is often poor and community transport non-existent.

“So to go to any social events or to do their shopping it is either a lift from a friendly neighbour, or a taxi if they can scrape together the fare.

“And older people do not get free lifts to medical appointments.

“So any rise in cab fares will inevitably lead to more social isolation, which itself leads to a decline in physical and mental well-being.”

“It’s the wrong thing to do and would show the Government is completely out of touch,” the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, Karl Turner, said before the change was confirmed, Birmingham Live reported.

“The Chancellor should end the speculation around this immediately and rule out the barmy taxi tax idea.”

It comes as Sir Keir Starmer defended Ms Reeves in a speech today, in which he said there was “no misleading” on the state of the public finances ahead of the Budget, and there has been no breach of Labour’s manifesto.

The Prime Minister said: “There was no misleading, and I simply don’t accept, and I was receiving the numbers, that being told that the OBR productivity review means you’ve got £16billion less than you would otherwise have had shows that you’ve got an easy starting point.

“Yes, of course, all the other figures have to be taken into account. But we started the process with significantly less than we would otherwise have had.

He added there was “no pretending” that it was a “good starting point”.

Sir Keir said: “There was a point at which we did think we would have to breach the manifesto in order to achieve what we wanted to achieve. Later on, it became possible to do it without the manifesto breach.

“Given the choice between the two, I didn’t want to breach the manifesto, and that’s why we came to the decisions that we did.”