Sir Keir Starmer has promised next week’s Budget will put Britain back “on track” after 17 years of mistakes by successive Labour and Conservative governments.
Speaking to reporters en route to the G20 summit in South Africa, the Prime Minister said Wednesday’s fiscal statement in the House of Commons will be emblematic of “a Labour government with Labour values”.
However, the Labour leader refused to comment on suggestions he personally should pay more in a putative wealth tax because he owns a £2million house in Kentish Town, north London.
The comments came after Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Britons had to their bit and pay more in taxes.
Sir Keir said: “The details of the budget will come on Wednesday. It’ll be a Labour budget with Labour values. It’ll be based on fairness. And it will have absolutely in mind protecting our public services, particularly the NHS, cutting our debt, and dealing with the cost of living, bearing down on the cost of living. So they’ll be the principles that will ruin through the budget. Now of course the right decisions have to be taken.”
The PM said the context of the Budget was decisions taken by Sir Tony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s New Labour government which led to the 2008 banking crash, followed by the Tories’ decisions over austerity, Brexit, the cornavirus pandemic and energy shock from the war in Ukraine.
Sir Keir said: “And we have to see this in the context of 16, 17 years now where we’ve had the crash in ’08, followed by austerity, followed by a not very good Brexit deal, followed by Covid, followed by Ukraine, and that’s why we have to take the decision to get this back on track. I’m optimistic about the future, I do think if we get this right our country has a great future. They’ll be the principles behind the budget.”
Asked whether he would shoulder more of the tax burden given he had “done well in life”, Sir Keir replied: “I’m not going to get ahead of the budget on Wednesday but the principles will be based on fairness and you’ll see that reflected in the budget. The main three principles will very much be about protecting our public services, our NHS that’s a fundaments principle. Rebuilding that. And protecting it. That’s why we’ve invested so much in the NHS at the last budget. As a result of that investment we promised two million extra appointments, we’ve done five million. Bearing down on debt which is hugely important and dealing with the cost of living.”
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