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Millions of older people will not have to pay any tax on their state pension if Reform UK wins power, Robert Jenrick has promised. The would-be Chancellor made the pledge as he unveiled bold plans to raise the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000.

Writing exclusively in the Sunday Express Mr Jenrick said the move would be a “game changer” and mean that pensioners would “keep every penny” of their state pension – which is currently a maximum of £12,548 a year.

Not raising the personal allowance would be “an outrageous violation of trust”, he said.

“Pensioners who are receiving only the basic level of support, after a lifetime of contributions, should not then have that support shrunk in order to pay for the state’s largesse,” he added.

The personal allowance, which is the amount you are allowed to earn until you begin paying income tax, has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021.

Under current plans, the long-running freeze is due to extend until 2031 despite a growing clamour for the Treasury to end the “stealth” raid on workers.

Mr Jenrick unveiled the plan, which would be the largest single increase to the personal allowance in history, at Reform’s conference in Birmingham on Saturday.

The party estimates hiking it to £15,000 would save the majority of taxpayers around £500 a year and would benefit around 40 million people overall.

It will also take 2.9 million people out of income tax altogether and ensure the state pension remains untaxed.

Under what is known as “fiscal drag”, millions of Britons have been pulled deeper into the tax system due to the freezing of the personal allowance and income tax thresholds in recent years.

Both Labour and Tory chancellors have been accused of “stealth taxes” by failing to increase allowances and thresholds in line with earnings growth prompted by the cost-of-living crisis.

Mr Jenrick says that the freezing of the personal allowance since 2021 under both Labour and Tory administrations has left the allowance £3,500 lower than it otherwise would be.

In his conference speech, he said that “there has never, in our lifetimes, been a worse time to be a worker in Britain”.

He added: “As Chancellor, I will wake each morning with one purpose.

“To make Britain a better place to be a worker than it was the day before. In the first 100 days of a Reform government, in our first Budget, we will raise the tax-free personal allowance from £12,570 to £15,000.”

Reform said the cost to the Treasury of raising the personal allowance would be £17.7billion in the first year, rising to £21billion in the fifth year of the next parliament.

The party is promising to fund the tax cut through £80billion of savings in government spending it has already identified.

This includes slashing billions of pounds from the welfare bill, Net Zero spending, and the foreign aid budget.

Mr Jenrick also challenged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to match Reform’s pledge.

“The hard choice for Burnham and for us is exactly the same,” he said.

“It’s either welfare waste, foreign aid and migrants – or the British worker. We choose the worker.”

Shortly after becoming Prime Minister, Mr Burnham hinted that he was looking at ending the five-year freeze on the threshold, saying it caused “frustration” in his Makerfield constituency.

However, he then rowed back on plans to raise the allowance after officials concluded that raising the untaxed proportion of income would cost £3.7billion.

Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, welcomed the pledge and challenged Labour to match it.

He said: “Pensioners will be pleased that their number one priority for the Autumn Budget is being raised by Reform UK and we hope the other opposition parties, and Labour backbenchers, will wind up the pressure on the Chancellor to act on the frozen personal allowances.

“Our mass petition to raise the personal allowance by £1,000 now stands at over 214,000 signatures and it would be unforgivable if the Government fails to prevent the basic state pension from being taxed on 28 October.

“Raising the lower tax threshold is the best way of providing meaningful cost-of-living support for low income families this winter. For older people, this Budget will stand or fall on what the chancellor does on tax thresholds.”

At the last general election in 2024, Reform promised to raise the personal allowance to £20,000.

Mr Jenrick confirmed this remains the party’s long-term aim, saying: “When we can – only when it is paid for in full – I will go further, step-by-step, until we’ve reached Reform’s ambition of a £20,000 tax free allowance.”

Mr Jenrick’s revival of a promise to increase the tax-free allowance is a further sign that Reform is ramping up its preparations for government.

The party led more than 300 consecutive opinion polls between April 2025 and last month, only for Labour to regain its average lead in Mr Burnham’s first few weeks.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Robert Jenrick only seems to be interested in making people better off when Reform UK is trying to distract from the latest scandal engulfing their party. The public will see right through it.

“Farage and Reform are funding policy after policy through mystery spending cuts, which could put local schools, hospitals and other vital public services at risk.

“Meanwhile as soon as Andy Burnham became Prime Minister, he prioritised cutting taxes to provide much-needed breathing space for families and businesses on the cost of living. Labour remains determined to make people better off and drive good growth in every postcode.”

This year’s Reform party conference has at times been overshadowed by allegations that Reform breached political donation rules.

James Orr and Dan Jukes, two long-standing members of Mr Farage’s inner circle, left their positions on Friday after the party launched an internal investigation into claims it had polling paid for by an overseas company.

Their departures followed a Channel 4 News documentary that alleged that Reform had taken funding from a US firm for three polls it had commissioned earlier this year, costing £32,500.

In his party-conference speech, which was interrupted four times by hecklers, Mr Farage said the way his aides had acted was “injudicious at best”. However, he insisted that he and Reform had broken no rules, claiming the revelations were the result of a sting by Left-wing activists.