Latest news with #SirMelStride
Daily Mail
08-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
QUENTIN LETTS: The yelps of Tory mirth could have been the canned laughter they used on The Flintstones
could – arguably should – have been at the Commons despatch box to answer questions about her fiscal rules. Instead we had Darren Jones, Treasury chief secretary. Mr Jones is one of life's assistant hotel managers. Never raises his voice. Smells faintly of geraniums. With his clean fingernails and corrugated hairdo he is normally rather good at handling complaints from shouty guests. Even this suave under-strapper was some way off his best. He gabbled. Those youthful hands shook. He kept fiddling with his wedding ring and his courtesy frayed like used dental floss. There was, mind you, one respect in which his performance was a success: he did not start blubbing. Supporters of the Chancellor will say Cabinet ministers never turn up for Opposition fishing expeditions. True. Yet, after last week's lamentations from Ms Reeves and the financial markets' twitchiness, this light-ish Monday afternoon event might have been a chance for her to reassert herself. Has her nerve snapped? Is she still weepy? Was she worried she might say something injudicious and again make City graphs resemble Donald Trump's autograph? Sir Mel Stride, Shadow Chancellor, enjoyed his sport. 'This is a Government divided, a Government wrecking the public finances,' hollered Sir Mel. There are not many Conservatives at Westminster nowadays but the life raft's survivors look a lot perkier than they did a year ago. Or a month ago. Mr Jones pushed out his jaw and said: 'Liz Truss.' That, in short, was his response to every sally from the Tories. 'Liz Truss, Liz Truss, Liz Truss.' It made Labour backbenchers feel a little less wretched. They could console themselves that they were not as bad as the Trussette. Except... they were! Two Tories pointed out that borrowing costs under Starmer-Reeves are higher than they were under Truss-Kwarteng. This apparently came as news to Mr Jones. One Labour MP referred to Ms Truss as 'the previous prime minister', as if Rishi Sunak had never existed. Perhaps they feared that Rishi and Jeremy Hunt might now be felt to have made a better fist of things than the nasal knight and Madame Waterworks. At this stage in a parliament, you would expect a government to have impetus. You would expect it still to be talking about terrific new policies that would soon be introduced. What was striking about Mr Jones's appearance was how there was almost none of that. He was entirely defensive and backward-looking. 'Liz Truss, Liz Truss.' The great ship of state is becalmed. As in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the decks are warping, seawater laps lifelessly at the bows and crew members are parched. Labour MPs did not have enough to cheer. Nor did anyone, save two members of the Whips' Office, turn up on the front bench to support Mr Jones. 'Business confidence is rising,' he insisted. It caused a certain amusement. 'We're not going to put the nation's finances at risk,' he averred. Tory voice: 'You already have!' Now Mr Jones was speaking of how Ms Reeves 'updated the definition of debt'. This won such a yelp of Tory mirth, it could have been the canned laughter they used on The Flintstones. Mr Jones bridled at that and snapped that the Tories had 'no plans'. Well, no, they don't. But that is a line of argument for year four in a parliament. At the start of year two, a minister should brim with his own shiny solutions. Where is the impetus? To employ a different maritime analogy, motorboats need to keep whooshing forwards. If they stop, the water-skier goes glug-glug-glug and all you smell is failure. Warinder Juss (Lab, Wolverhampton West) cried: 'This Government has had the courage to make the difficult decisions necessary!' Joyous knee-slapping from HM's Official Opposition. The Lib Dems did not join this scoffing. Having sucked up to the Starmerites almost as much as dopey Brother Juss, they must be wondering if their dreams of coalition with Sir Keir will ever float.
The Independent
07-07-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Treasury minister declines to rule out wealth tax
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has declined to rule out the introduction of a wealth tax when pressed by Tory MPs on future tax rises. This comes after former Labour leader Lord Neil Kinnock suggested a wealth tax could 'commend' the Government to the general public, as he claimed Labour policies have been 'obscured' by rows over welfare and winter fuel. Darren Jones repeatedly told the Commons that any tax decisions would be set out by the Chancellor at the budget in the autumn. During an urgent question on the Government's fiscal rules, Conservative MP Neil O'Brien claimed speculation of a wealth tax would be enough to 'drive investment away'. Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride pressed the Government on 'how they intend to cover the £6 billion of unfunded commitments which their U-turns have run up in the last month alone'. He added: 'The Chancellor said at the budget she would not be coming back with more tax rises. Is this still the position? 'And will the Chief Secretary rule out a wealth tax, along with reconfirming that there will be no rise in income tax, national insurance or VAT? 'The Chancellor said she would not extend the freeze on tax thresholds because it would hurt working people. Is this still the position? 'And can the Chief Secretary confirm that the Chancellor will not be adding to her fiscal black hole by scrapping the two-child benefit cap?' Mr Jones replied: 'He asks me to comment on forecasts of annually managed expenditure. He's asked me to comment on future tax decisions. He's a man that knows how this works. All of that happens with a forecast and a budget, which will happen in the autumn.' Mr O'Brien, MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, said: 'If you tell business people and wealth creators that if they leave their money in this country, it's going to get taxed, then you drive even more investors away. 'Isn't it the case that even if this measure is not ultimately put in place, over the next couple of months the speculation about a wealth tax itself will drive investment away from this country?' Mr Jones replied: 'The Chancellor will set out any decisions on tax one way or the other at the budget, which she will do in the autumn.' Conservative former Treasury minister John Glen urged the Government to consult with business leaders and conduct 'a proper impact assessment of whichever taxes he is going to increase'. Mr Jones said: 'The Treasury engages with business leaders and investors all of the time, and the one thing they tell me is that they're grateful this Government has brought back long-term, multi-year budgets, that they've got the fiscal rules, that they're in place, that we're reforming things like the planning system to make it easier to do business in this country. 'And as a consequence, business confidence is increasing under this Government, having dropped enormously under his government.' Lord Kinnock, who led the party from 1983 to 1992, told Sky News there are things the party could do that 'would commend themselves to the great majority of the general public' and that these included 'asset taxes'. 'By going for an imposition of 2% on asset values above £10 million, say, which is a very big fortune, the Government would be in a position to collect £10 billion or £11 billion,' he said.
Telegraph
15-06-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Mel Stride: We will never do a deal with Reform
Sir Mel Stride has vowed the Tories will never make a pact with Reform as he attacked the party's 'fantasy economics'. The shadow chancellor said Nigel Farage's party would put the economy on 'the road to ruin' and said: 'I don't want to be a populist that runs around saying we can do this, that and everything else for you without any plan behind it. I just think that's recklessness.' Sir Mel also attacked Rachel Reeves's 'huge borrowing splurge' to fund spending plans until the next election, but warned that Reform's pledges were even more 'dangerous'. While some influential Tories have called for the parties to work more closely together, Sir Mel said the Conservatives would never strike a deal under his watch. 'I don't want to get involved with a party that peddles fantasy economics,' he told The Telegraph. 'Why would I want to do that? I want to be with a party that is going to be four-square behind fiscal responsibility and manage our economy in a way that doesn't imperil the livelihoods of people up and down our country.' His comments come as the Conservatives seek to fight back against Reform, which has surged past the party in the polls to take the position of Labour's de facto main opposition. Many observers believe the Tories are still paying the price of Liz Truss's mini-Budget of unfunded tax cuts, which triggered the market chaos that led to her downfall. The Conservatives' polling numbers collapsed in the wake of the crisis and have never recovered. Sir Mel has chosen to disavow the policies of Ms Truss as the Conservatives seek to rebuild. He also warned that a Reform victory may lead to a sequel. Reform's central election pledge is to raise the amount people can earn before they start paying tax to £20,000. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated this could cost up to £80bn, although Reform has insisted its plans would be fully funded by sweeping cuts to Whitehall departments and said it would not cut taxes until it had slashed spending first. However, raising the tax threshold is just one of several costly promises made by Mr Farage's party. Reform has also pledged to cut corporation tax and abolish the two-child benefit cap that restricts payments to families with three or more children. Sir Mel said: '[They're] promising everybody everything they want to hear, without any credible plan as to how they're going to pay for any of this. Certainly, if Reform were in No 10 now, I think the economy would be in a very dangerous position.' While he now spends much of his time in attack mode, Sir Mel offers up little of substance when it comes to policies of his own. He says Britain is failing the young and suggests the Government should do more to crack down on Mickey Mouse degrees that do little to increase people's job prospects. But just as he suggests universities may have a role in sharing the financial burden of dead-end degrees, he stops himself to insist the proposal is just 'blue-sky thinking in an interview'. This caution has allowed Reform to steal the limelight with its eye-catching proposals as the Tories struggle to get their mojo back. Sir Mel, who almost lost his Central Devon seat at the last election, admits his party 'lost connection entirely with the British electorate and we have to win that back – and that will take time'. For now, he believes the best way to do that is by highlighting the flaws in Reform's policy platform. 'What we've got to do is be out there making the case that people need to think long and hard about whether the numbers add up, because if they don't, that is the road to ruin,' Sir Mel says. 'Right now, Reform is ahead in the polls [and] they are out there saying they will take everybody out of tax up to £20,000 at a cost of £50bn to £80bn – about a third of what we spend on the NHS every year, with its 1.3m employees. Really? How are they going to fund that?' The Conservatives' slump in the polls had to put pressure on Kemi Badenoch but Sir Mel said she was 'absolutely' the right person to lead the party. This is Sir Mel's 11th interview of the day and he's only halfway through his commitments. Stationed in the shadow cabinet room in Westminster, he's armed with two copies of the cornflower blue spending review book, one of which is covered in scribbled notes that include a reminder to talk about GDP figures out that morning to attack lines such as 'summer of speculation, fear of what will come'. Sir Mel, a self-confessed history buff, suggests the Tories would be prepared to take the tough decisions to slash the size of the state if they got back into power. The man who led a series of sweeping reforms to the benefits system insists 'we need to get a grip on welfare' as he opened the door to a conversation about the NHS. While qualifying that the health service is an 'absolutely vital part of what we are as a civilised society', he signals there will be choices to come 'around what the health service does'. Sir Mel says: 'What is possible at different points in time changes. For example, the idea of my grandparents going to hospital, getting both hips replaced and leaping around like a mountain goat within weeks would have been entirely fancy. We have drugs today that can do things that we didn't have the drugs to do in the past. So it will be an evolving terrain. 'But my fundamental point is that if you run a health service that is not productive, that is consuming ever larger levels of resources and is not really producing in the way that it can, then you're not serving the British people properly.' While he is reluctant to talk specific policies, he suggests one of his priorities is to address tax traps that can leave people facing punishing tax rates for every extra hour worked, including the so-called 60pc trap where people who earn above £100,000 gradually have their personal allowance withdrawn. 'There are definitely aspects of the complications within the tax system that slow economic activity,' he says. 'The personal allowance gets withdrawn above a certain level of income and that leads to high marginal tax rates. 'The interaction with the benefit system can produce similar effects to the withdrawal of child benefit where you can actually reach marginal tax rates of 70pc or more. So there are all sorts of things that we need to think very deeply about within our tax system.' Young people are also firmly on his mind, with Sir Mel frequently citing the fact that the average Tory voter is 63. He wants to change that. 'We have to have a big, bold, credible offer that shows younger people that they can have the opportunities that I had as a young man. The education that will lead to higher-paying jobs so they can get on the housing ladder.' He has put forward a proposal for a 'Headstart' scheme under which a person in their first job would see their first £5,000 of National Insurance paid not to HMRC but into a personal savings pot which they could use as a down-payment for a house. Before he can be drawn on detail, he steps back again, saying the proposal is 'just one idea we're discussing'. 'We will have the answers through time,' he insists. 'I'm not the Chancellor, I'm not in the Treasury.' Judging by the polls, he will have to work hard to change that.
Daily Mail
10-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Rachel Reeves rocked by jobs slump: Shock figures show quarter of a MILLION jobs have gone since tax-raising Budget - as Chancellor prepares for giant spending spree
Rachel Reeves has been hit by a jobs slump as she prepares to take a gamble on the nation's finances with a giant spending spree. In a blow that makes a mockery of the Chancellor's claim to have 'fixed the foundations' of the economy, official figures showed a quarter of a million jobs have gone since her tax-raising Budget last year. Experts said it was a 'painful lesson in basic economics' for Ms Reeves after she ignored warnings and levied a £25 billion 'jobs tax' on National Insurance. The Chancellor will today set out Labour 's spending plans for the rest of the Parliament following a bitter Cabinet battle over how to divide up the proceeds from last year's Budget. Last night Ms Reeves admitted that voters do not feel like they have more money in their pockets as Labour prepares to mark one year in office. But she claimed that turning on the spending taps would ensure 'working people all over our country are better off'. Ms Reeves is expected to boast that her new approach will allow Labour to spend a staggering £300 billion more over the next five years than had been planned by the last Tory government. Ministers have described the spending plans – equal to an extra £8,100 for every taxpayer in Britain – as 'the end of austerity'. But Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride warned that the scale of the splurge raises the prospect of further tax rises to be announced this year. 'Rachel Reeves talks about hard choices – but her real choice has been to take the easy road,' he said. 'Spend more, borrow more, and cross her fingers. 'This spending review won't be a plan for the future – it will be a dangerous gamble with Britain's economic stability.' He added: 'Labour is spending money it doesn't have, with no credible plan to pay for it. That means more borrowing, more debt, and, inevitably, more tax rises in the autumn Budget.' Last week, Ms Reeves refused to rule out any further tax increases. Spending will be skewed heavily towards the NHS in an attempt to cut waiting lists further. Defence is set to be another big winner after Sir Keir Starmer committed to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027. Allies of Angela Rayner were last night claiming victory in her bid to secure more cash towards meeting Labour's target of building 1.5 million new homes by the next election. The Deputy Prime Minister, who is responsible for housing policy, had a series of bust-ups with Treasury ministers and No 10 over the issue. The Treasury had proposed a modest increase in the social housing budget from £2.3 billion a year to £2.5 billion. But government sources last night said Ms Rayner had secured a £39 billion settlement over ten years. The Treasury said it was the biggest boost to social housing in a generation. But the growing cost of servicing the UK's debt mountain means other areas of spending, including the police, face a budget squeeze in future years. John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'The Chancellor is abandoning all economic credibility in order to appease her insatiable Cabinet colleagues. 'Ministers need to focus on eradicating waste and providing value for money, not pretending that simply throwing more taxpayers' cash at a problem is the answer.' In recent days, the Chancellor and Prime Minister have repeatedly claimed that Labour has 'fixed the foundations' of the economy, despite rising inflation and cuts to official growth forecasts. Yesterday's stark employment figures underline the real-world impact of Labour's tax and spend approach. They revealed UK payroll numbers have shrunk by 276,000 over the past seven months. In May alone, payrolls fell by 109,000 – the worst month since the pandemic. Meanwhile the unemployment rate has climbed to 4.6 per cent, the highest in nearly four years. Experts pinned the blame on Ms Reeves's £25 billion raid on employer National Insurance, which was announced in the October Budget and took effect in April. Payroll numbers fell every month since the Budget. Julian Jessop, economics fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a free market think-tank, said: 'The slump in the number of payrolled jobs in May is a painful lesson in basic economics: if you make it much more expensive to employ people, fewer people will be employed.' Trade body UK Hospitality pointed out that the impact on jobs had turned out to be far worse than feared. At the time the tax raid was announced, forecasts from the Government's fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, predicted it would cost 50,000 jobs, while Deutsche Bank forecast 100,000 jobs would go. Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said: 'Losing more than 100,000 jobs across the economy in a month goes far beyond the worst-case scenario predicted by the Government's own fiscal watchdog, major banks, and countless business groups. 'We were clear at the time that the changes to NICs were a tax on jobs, and so it is sadly proving.'
The Independent
05-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Even Kemi Badenoch's closest allies admit she needs to get better - but she may be running out of time
Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride had intended to talk about one failed female Tory leader with his keynote speech in London on Thursday morning - but ended up discussing another instead. Sir Mel had intended to apologise about Liz Truss ' mini-Budget and set a new economic path back to recovery for the Conservative Party. But he ended up providing some less than helpful comments about his current leader Kemi Badenoch. The problem was that the remarks he made were unsolicited. He was asked by a journalist whether the leadership election rules should be changed to prevent someone like Ms Truss becoming leader again. But instead, he took the opportunity to say some things about his current, much under fire, leader Ms Badenoch. He said: 'She will get better through time. At the media she will get better through time and at the dispatch box. Just as Margaret Thatcher, when she became [party leader] she was a new broom in 1975 and was often criticised about everything from her hair to the clothes she wore to the pitch of her voice, her head, who knows what else. In the end, she got it together, and Kemi will do.' He insisted the shadow cabinet was 'all united' behind her - a statement that is patently not true. It was an astonishing admission. His intention was probably to be helpful, but he just confirmed what everyone else was thinking; that his leader was a poor performer on the media, doing badly in the Commons chamber, and was essentially not up to the job at the moment. To liken it to the mid-1970s - when there was no social media nor a party like Reform UK competing on the right - was, as the old saying goes, comparing apples with oranges. Speaking at the Royal Academy of Arts, Sir Mel could not have painted a more vivid picture of Tory dysfunction. But let us be frank. His faint praise, if it was as nice as that, summed up the consensus within the party. In fact, it is hard to find a Conservative MP or activist who will say privately that their leader is doing a great job. One shadow minister this week told The Independent that many of them have 'resorted to gallows humour' to keep their spirits up. One of the few new Tory MPs complained that they could 'count the number of seconds on their fingers' that Ms Badenoch had spoken to them since becoming leader. Added to that she is being constantly outshone at every turn by her former leadership rival shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, not least with his video stunts. The recent one catching fare dodgers at Stratford tube station was planned by Mr Jenrick's team before with no reference to the leader. Ms Badenoch's own video meeting grooming gang victims was completely overshadowed by Mr Jenrick chasing non-payers down Transport for London (TfL) escalators. The constant criticism is that her lack of policies and charisma are seeing the party's support collapse in the face of Nigel Farage and Reform. The reality is that while none of the MPs can work out how to force Ms Badenoch out, they are all preparing for a potential leadership election for a replacement. Mr Jenrick is now the frontrunner but it was no coincidence that former foreign and home secretary Sir James Cleverly has been giving interviews offering an alternative vision for left-leaning Tories. Sir Mel wants a period of 'thoughtfulness' to work out policy and give Ms Badenoch time to find her feet. In the fast moving nature of 2025 politics, Ms Badenoch may not have much time left to prove herself.
