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Keir Starmer WON’T rule out stealth tax on millions after Labour benefits cuts slammed as ‘too little, too late’
The Conservatives urged Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall to be 'tougher' on benefit cuts
SIR Keir Starmer today refused to rule out a crippling stealth tax on millions of Brits.
Despite a pledge by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to unfreeze income tax thresholds in April 2028, the PM would not repeat the promise during a fiery PMQs.
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Tory leader Kemi Badenoch asked the PM: "The Chancellor promised a once in a parliament budget that she would not come back for more, and in that budget, she said there will be no extension of the freeze in income tax thresholds ahead of the emergency budget, will he repeat the commitment that she made?"
Sir Keir replied: "She's got such pre-scripted questions, she can't actually adapt them to the answers that I'm giving.
"I think she now calls herself a conservative realist. I'm realistic about the conservatives.
"The reality is they left open borders and she was the cheerleader. They crashed the economy."
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Income tax thresholds were frozen in 2022 by the last Conservative government.
The fiscal policy increases people's tax bills without increasing levy rates.
A Tory spokesperson accused the PM of plotting a secret tax raid during the Spring Spending Review next week.
The Treasury has previously said tax changes will NOT feature in the statement.
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It came after Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately yesterday slammed the Government's welfare reforms as "too little, too late" claiming chancers are abusing benefits and Labour's raid hasn't gone far enough to stop them.
The Government on Tuesday announced a raft of welfare measures it says will help bring more working age people back into jobs, and which will save the taxpayer billions of pounds.
Among the most significant moves is the tightening of eligibility for personal independence payments (PIP), a benefit aimed at helping those with disability or long-term illness with increased living costs.
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to be affected by the changes to PIP eligibility, which will account for the largest proportion of savings the Government hopes to make.
The Sun Says
OUR welfare system is wildly out of control — and Labour’s commendable reforms are a vital first effort to rein it in. They may still be too mild to turn it around.
That is unsurprising. The barrage of abuse the Government faced yesterday — from outraged left-wing charities, Labour voters and its own despairing backbenchers — showed what Ministers were up against tackling benefits at all.
Those objectors inhabit a fantasy world where all claimants are genuinely needy.
Where Labour, once the party of workers, should instead prioritise those NOT working.
Where taxes paid by those in jobs are limitless and the rich can be hammered again and again without any negative consequences.
It is as reckless as it is stupid.
Among all the depressing recent welfare statistics, most shocking are the rise of 700,000 in incapacity benefit claimants since Covid and the one in ten working-age people now getting sickness or disability handouts.
Plenty are of course genuine.
But making benefits easier to secure was catnip to huge numbers who loved being paid by the State to do nothing in the pandemic.
The fact TikTok reprobates now coach them on how to embellish their case makes matters worse.
By 2030 the welfare bill is set to top £100billion. That’s absurdly unaffordable.
In that context, the £5billion saving projected by Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall looks very small beer, even if realised in full.
It was bizarre, too, for her to blame this crisis somehow on the Thatcher-era Tories of four decades ago, as if 13 years of “New Labour” never happened.
But if by cutting certain benefits and tightening up eligibility and assessments she propels good numbers back to work, she’ll have made a decent start.
We can only hope it works.
Elsewhere ministers will scrap the work capability assessment for universal credit, the test of whether someone can get incapacity benefit payments based on their fitness for work.
This will be replaced by 2028 with a single assessment considering the impact a person's disability has on daily living, rather than their fitness to work.
But the Conservatives urged Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall to be "tougher".
Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately told the Commons: "This is a now or never chance to seize the moment, a now or never for millions of people who will otherwise be signed off for what could end up being a lifetime on benefits, but this announcement today leaves me with more questions than answers.
"How many people will this help back into work? By when? Surely we haven't been waiting eight months just for another green paper
"Where is the fit note reform, crucial to stem the flow of people onto benefits?
"Where is the action on people being signed off sick for the everyday ups and downs of life?
"Why is she only planning to save £5billion when the bill is forecast to rise to over £100billion?
Watch Rachel Reeves' deputy confronted with litany of mistakes - as millions face MORE tax hikes
"And do the savings she's announcing today include the £5billion savings we'd already agreed with the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) for reforming the work capability assessment.
"Because, if so, she has made virtually no savings of her own. What is the saving net of the additional expenditure planned?
"Fundamentally, this is too little, too late. The fact is £5billion just doesn't cut it.
"With a bill so big, going up so fast, she needed to be tougher.
Key changes include:
- Merging jobseekers' allowance and employment support allowance, where people who have worked get more than those who have not
- Scrapping the Work Capability Assessment by 2028, with all health payments made via PIP in future
- Under-22s to be banned entirely from claiming Universal Credit incapacity benefits
- An above-inflation rise to the standard allowance of Universal Credit, but the highest incapacity payment cut
- A much higher bar for people to claim Personal Independence Payments to save £5billion a year
- A "right to try" scheme that allows jobless Brits to have a go at working without losing their benefits if they cannot manage
"She should be saying no more hard working taxpayers funding the family next door not to work.
"No more free top of the range cars for people who don't need them."
Writing in The Times newspaper, Sir Keir Starmer pointed to the 2.8 million working age people out of work due to long-term sickness, claiming this was a "damning indictment of the Conservative record" on welfare.
The Prime Minister added: "The result is devastating for the public finances.
"By 2030 we are projected to spend £70billion a year on working-age incapacity and disability benefits alone.
"But more importantly it has wreaked a terrible human cost. Young people shut out of the labour market at a formative age.
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"People with complex long-term conditions, written off by a single assessment.
"People who want to return to work, yet can't access the support they need. All this is happening at scale and it is indefensible."
Have the rebels won the day?
By , Deputy Political Editor
LABOUR's major overhaul of the welfare system has been dogged by a brewing rebellion - but critics are asking whether the rebels have won the day.
Do these reforms fall far short of what is needed when only £5billion is being saved?
The party's disgruntled MPs have been dragged into Number 10 for private briefings to help smooth things over but the frontbench put on a show of unity.
Welfare Secretary Liz Kendall had the support of Sir Keir Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner on the frontbench for her showpiece announcement today.
The plan outlined how £5billion will be saved under the new plan - but it won't affect those with the greatest need.
But the benefits bill is set to go up by eye-watering amounts and has already risen by £20billion since the pandemic.
Sickness and disability benefits for those of working age are scheduled to hit £70 billion over the next five years.
Changes include the work capability assessment scrapped and the health top up in Universal Credit being delayed until someone is 22.
There will also be reforms to eligibility rules for Personal Independence Payments meaning even only the most disabled people will be able to claim.
For those who can get into work there will be £1billion ploughed into employment support giving a "pathway to work", Ms Kendall added.
But Tory frontbencher Helen Whately told Ms Kendall that the reforms "just doesn't cut it" and how "she needed to be tougher".
This benefits bill cull fits into the bigger picture of the Spring Statement to be delivered next week.
But have the savings allowed the Chancellor made it easier for her to balance the books and not be so savage on Whitehall spending cuts next week.
Time will tell.
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