Chancellor Rachel Reeves is this week expected to announce a £20 billion black hole in the country’s finances. Many believe Labour are setting the ground for inevitable tax hikes and spending cuts in the autumn, blaming unexpected levels of Tory mismanagement for their decisions. On Sky News this morning, Environment Secretary Steve Reed said Labour would be ‘open and transparent’ about what they’ve learned since coming into government.
Trevor Phillips suggested it wasn’t credible that Labour had only just realised the extent of the UK’s economic woes, and showed a statement from Reeves made last month in which she said on the subject: ‘You don’t need to win an election to find that out’.
Reed said that they had learned of problems outside the scope of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), mentioning the prisons crisis, and that the Rwanda scheme had cost far more than the government admitted. Reed claimed that Rishi Sunak ‘deliberately covered it up’.
John Glen: ‘The Prime Minister can’t even define who working people are’
Former Conservative minister John Glen was asked by Trevor Phillips how his party could have been promising more tax cuts during the election campaign.
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