𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Kemi Badenoch will warn that Labour are set to hike taxes on working people to “give handouts to people on benefits” in a speech tomorrow. The Tory leader will hit out at Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves over reports that the Chancellor will freeze thresholds for an extra two years after abandoning plans to raise income tax in her upcoming Budget.

She will say the freeze is paying for the Prime Minister’s U-turn on welfare cuts and to potentially lift the two-child benefit cap following intense pressure from Labour backbench MPs. Mrs Badenoch will say: “Just a few months ago, Rachel Reeves was saying she couldn’t afford to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Now it looks like becoming her latest U-turn.

“This isn’t because the economic circumstances have improved. Quite the opposite.

“Remember, a fortnight ago Reeves summoned the media to Downing Street to blame everyone from the Office for Budget Responsibility, to Brexit, to Trump, for her own economic mismanagement.

“We need to call this out for what it is: Labour are raising taxes to pay for Keir Starmer’s weakness on welfare cuts.

“He has already u-turned on £5 billion of welfare savings in the face of pressure from his left-wing backbenchers.

“And because Starmer has no backbone, he is now set to lift the two-child benefit cap. That’s around £8.5 billion of additional welfare spending.”

The leader of the Opposition insisted that Sir Keir had “already broken” Labour’s election manifesto pledge not to increase taxes for working people with the national insurance raid on employers at last year’s budget.

She said the increase had been “passed on to all of us through higher prices, lower wages and fewer jobs”.

Mrs Badenoch added: “He and Reeves are now set to go even further: freezing income tax thresholds so that more and more people are dragged into higher rates through a stealth tax bombshell.

“Rachel Reeves even said at the Budget last year that ‘extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people’ and ‘take money out of their payslips’.

“They’re hiking taxes on people in work, to give handouts to people on benefits, the last group of people who might still vote Labour.

“It’s not fair, it’s not right, and we will oppose them every single step of the way.”

It comes amid reports that the Chancellor will extend the freeze on income tax thresholds, which was introduced by the Tories, for two years until 2030 in her November 26 statement.

The move could raise some £8 billion a year for the Treasury as Ms Reeves scrambles to fill a black hole in the public finances.

But Labour said it was “astonishing that the Tories have the barefaced cheek to lecture anyone”.

A spokesperson added: “After crashing the economy which sent mortgages rocketing, and leaving a £22 billion blackhole in the public finances, Kemi Badenoch is still yet to apologise.

“Welfare and debt spiralled on their watch, and public services were cut down to the bone.

“Now they’re promising to take us back to austerity with £47 billion worth of cuts. That means money drained out of your local hospital, your child’s school, and your local police. The Conservatives couldn’t be trusted then, and they can’t be trusted now.”