Chancellor Rachel Reeves rules out raising rates of income tax, National Insurance, or VAT
Economists warned the Chancellor might have to break Labour's manifesto pledge not to raise any of those taxes.
Experts say she may need up to £30billion more in revenue to cover sluggish growth and Labour U-turns.
On Tuesday, she told Cabinet ministers that rebels' reversal of planned benefit reforms meant taxes would have to rise.
But Treasury sources insisted they were sticking to the 2024 manifesto's pledge on key taxes.
It comes after a tough week for the Cabinet minister, who was seen crying in the Commons at PMQs on Wednesday.
Yesterday The Sun reported that drivers already hammered by soaring motoring taxes could face fresh pain at the pump with a fuel duty hike.
Reeves was understood to be 'considering everything' at the next Budget after her welfare U-turn — prompting fears for motorists.
Top Tory Dame Priti Patel said a hike would mean a 'betrayal of working people'.
The AA said motorists are already being squeezed, with Vehicle Excise Duty rising by £30 since 2022, plus millions more paid in parking charges, tolls and congestion fees.
AA boss Edmund King also warned any rise at the pumps 'could be catastrophic' for the UK economy.
He added: 'The added danger is increased duty simply fuels higher inflation. The strong message to the Chancellor is 'keep it down'.'
Rachel Reeves FINALLY addresses Commons tears after she and Keir Starmer put on awkward show of unity
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The Guardian
20 minutes ago
- The Guardian
France and UK expected to announce joint plan on small boat crossings
Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are expected to announce plans for French police to do more to block small boats crossing the Channel at a summit in London this week, but a wider deal on returning asylum seekers is still up in the air. While details remain limited, with French officials believed to be still finalising what action the country can take with boats that are already in shallow waters, an announcement is expected on Wednesday. It is also still possible that Starmer and the visiting French president could set out plans for a 'one in, one out' returns scheme for asylum seekers who make it to Britain, although UK officials say this is less likely. This scheme would allow for the return of small boat arrivals in exchange for the UK accepting another asylum seeker from France who is thought to have a clearer right to claim asylum in Britain, such as through family ties. Macron arrives on Tuesday for a state visit that will involve events with royals and other pageantry but is also scheduled to include an Anglo-French summit and other meetings with Starmer. France is expected to announce it will allow police to intervene in shallow waters up to 300 metres from shore in order to stop small boats leaving. It would help prevent 'taxi-boats', which pick people up in the water rather than launching from the beach with passengers on board. This will require changes to existing protocol that do not contravene the UN convention on the law of the sea, which bars any intervention at sea that is not an actual rescue. Maritime authorities have been asked to draw up proposals to 'advance' French protocol on interceptions to allow such interventions to take place 'while still respecting the UN convention on the law of the sea'. It is understood that a French review of such tactics has been completed, with French and British officials continuing talks about what more could be done. On Friday, French police used knives to puncture a boat in shallow seas near Boulogne, in northern France, although it is not known if this was a sign of new protocols or a one-off. Downing Street declined to comment on possible announcements before the visit, although Starmer's deputy spokesperson indicated that there was likely to be concrete progress on small boat crossings. He told reporters: 'We expect to make progress on a wide range of issues and joint priorities, and that includes migration. I'm not going to get ahead of the summit this week, but there are a range of maritime tactics that we have been discussing and have secured agreement with the French over. 'It is operationally and legally complicated, but we expect these tactics to be operationalised soon. 'It's for French authorities to make operational decisions for themselves, but as I say, it's a complex area, but we are working extremely closely with the French. Our relationship with them is better than it has been for a long time.' The hope of the 'one in, one out plan', in combination with a greater likelihood of boats being stopped in the water, is that people could be dissuaded from paying people-smugglers to try to get them across the faces sustained political pressure to reduce the number of people arriving across the Channel. Despite a government promise to 'smash the gangs' that organise the crossings, more than 20,000 people have crossed to the UK in the first six months of this year, up 48% on the equivalent period in 2024.
Times
38 minutes ago
- Times
Starmer will get it right after first getting it wrong … again
Sir Keir Starmer has just enjoyed his first prime ministerial birthday. No formal celebrations are understood to have taken place in No 10 over the weekend, though he may have been ambushed with a cake. It does happen. The consensus on his first year is that he has been uniquely skilled at making sure he suffers the maximum amount of pain for the very smallest amount of benefit. He has crossed the street to be punched in the face by blame. He and Rachel Reeves have liked to brand this relentless stampede toward loathing as being unafraid to take 'tough decisions'. Scrapping means-tested winter fuel payments, hammering the disabled; these were 'tough' decisions. And then, soon after, they were not afraid to take the even tougher decisions, of making themselves look ridiculous by not going through with them. In an interview to mark his first year, Starmer did not disagree with the verdict of a football friend who had called him 'a hard bastard'. He does himself down. To take all these tough decisions not once but twice is not merely hard but double hard. Great British Energy, renationalised rail, renters' rights and employment rights; these are all theoretically popular ideas but no one has noticed. Why? Because the government has made a spectacular show of doing and undoing again some of the most unpopular policies in decades, actions from which no one gains and only they suffer. Labour's second year began with a big bold plan to turn this frown upside down. What was Labour's most popular policy from the glory days of 1997? Sure Start centres, special community hubs for new parents that transformed life chances for children, which should never have been scrapped. And so to the dispatch box came the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to announce the plan to bring back Sure Start, under the new name of 'Best Start'. But, it not being 1997 any more, Phillipson and co had spent the weekend doing all they could to make sure no credit could come their way. Instead, what should have been the most popular policy announcement in ages was overshadowed by Labour's worst humiliation yet — the reform of funding entitlements for children with special educational needs. This stuff is toxic. In a fractured and polarised Commons, the state of special needs education is the one area of unity. Every MP spent weeks last year knocking on doors, trying to win votes and in every part of the country they heard that there's a crisis in special educational needs. While Phillipson spoke, members on both sides bobbed with enthusiasm. It was clear they were desperate to ask about anything other than the subject at hand. On Sunday, she'd been given a number of chances to assure the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that she would not be cutting the budget for special educational needs. That assurance did not come. On Monday morning on Times Radio, Stephen Morgan, the education minister responsible for early years, provided the same amount of reassurance — zero. At the moment, more than half a million children receive thousands in what are called education, health and care plans (EHCPs), at a cost of £12 billion a year. Reforms to this system are coming in the autumn, and 'reforms' rarely mean anything other than spending less money. Not for the first time in the past year, Mark Francois was the voice of reason, which tells you more than you need to know about the past year. 'The secretary of state has pointedly refused to rule out scrapping EHCPs,' he said. 'If that is her intention, could I offer her some advice: please don't do that.' Did we hear a 'Don't worry, I won't'? No we did not. Francois got the Kuenssberg treatment. What we heard was the following: 'We are taking our time to get this right.' If these words are frightening parents, they needn't worry. We know how it goes. 'Taking our time to get it right,' means one thing. Starmer and co have alighted on a third way all of their own. They'll get it right in the end, but only by first getting it wrong. As the sign on President Reagan's desk never quite read, there is no limit to what a man can do, as long as he makes sure he never, ever gets the credit.
South Wales Guardian
an hour ago
- South Wales Guardian
More than three out of five people think Starmer does not respect them
While in opposition, Sir Keir sought to make the concept of 'respect' central to his pitch to voters, and research from UCL suggested this played a key role in convincing the public to back him and the Labour Party. But a survey from More In Common and the UCL Policy Lab, published on Tuesday, suggested 63% of the public now thought the Prime Minister did not respect people like them, almost twice the 32% that thought so before the 2024 election. And while 41% of the public thought Sir Keir did respect them before the election, that figure has fallen to 24%. The poll also suggested that a perceived lack of respect from political elites was driving support for Reform UK, with supporters of that party more likely to think politicians as a whole disrespect them. Some 85% of Reform supporters said they thought politicians did not respect their contribution to society, while 86% thought politicians did not respect their values. But while Reform leader Nigel Farage scored more highly than the two main party leaders on respecting the public, 50% of those surveyed still said he did not respect people like them. That compared to 56% for Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and 63% for Sir Keir. And just 33% thought Mr Farage did respect them, compared to 24% for both Mrs Badenoch and Sir Keir. Tuesday's poll has been published alongside a report from More in Common and the UCL Policy Lab examining how public opinion has changed since the general election. It found 77% of people still thought it was time for change, while the most popular answer to the question of what had changed since Labour came to power was 'nothing'. Marc Stears, director of the UCL Policy Lab, said: 'What voters want to know most of all is: who does this Government stand for? What kind of people does it most respect? Whose interests does it put first? 'A lot of the electorate thought they knew the answer to that one year ago. Now they're not so sure.' The joint poll surveyed more than 7,000 people in May and June this year.
