Rachel Reeves vows NO more tax rises after Labour’s bruising £40bn budget raid
RACHEL Reeves boldly insisted last night there will be no further tax rises during her time as Chancellor.
Her dramatic claim to a frosty reception from business leaders came as McVitie’s biscuit chief said Britain was becoming a less attractive place to invest.
Reeves, whose pledge makes her a hostage to fortune, vowed she has “wiped the slate clean” after £40 billion of tax hikes at the Budget last month.
But her intervention comes as Tory leader Kemi Badenoch refused to say if she would reverse changes.
Ms Reeves told the CBI business summit that she hadn’t heard “many alternatives” after facing claims firms were being used as cash cows.
She said: “I faced a problem, and I faced into it, and we have now drawn a line under the fiction peddled by the previous government.
“We’ve put our public finances back on a firm footing, and we’ve now set the budgets for public services for the duration of this Parliament.
“Public services now need to live within their means because I’m really clear, I’m not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes.”
In a boost to the public and business, she added that “we’re never going to have to do a budget like that again”.
But her comments came after Rain Newton-Smith, CBI chief executive, said that “tax rises like this must never again be simply done to business”.
And the chief executive of the firm behind brands such as McVitie’s and Jacob’s also said the UK was less attractive to do business.
Salman Amin, boss of Pladis, said: “Historically we’ve been super bullish on the United Kingdom. In fact, by far, the greatest investment across all of our countries over the last decade or so has come to the UK.
“So we’ve been a very major investor in the UK. We would like to continue to be a major investor going forward. It’s becoming harder to understand what the case for investment is.”
A Confederation of British Industry survey of 266 firms found 62 per cent were likely to reduce the number of new hires as a result of the NI hike while almost half – 48 per cent – would reduce their current headcount.
However, Tory leader Ms Badenoch refused to say whether she would reverse the rise in employers’ national insurance at the Budget.
She told Sky News that she would likely change the policy but wouldn’t comment on “every bit of micropolicy”.
The Chancellor has also been under pressure after imposing changes to inheritance tax that will hit farmers and taking away universal winter fuel payments.