Will Labour raise taxes?

What is Labour’s tax-and-spend agenda? This is an outstanding question the party needs to answer before polling day – and Labour seems to know it. That is presumably why shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves sat in the BBC One hot seat on the first Sunday of the election campaign. ‘I totally agree I have to show the sums add up’ Reeves told Laura Kuenssberg this morning. 

But what will be done to make that possible: higher taxes, more borrowing, or a reduction in spending? Unsurprisingly, Reeves did not want to make firm commitments in most of these areas. The shadow chancellor did commit though once again to not raising certain taxes. ‘We certainly won’t be increasing income tax or National Insurance,’ Reeves told Kuenssberg. (Labour has also previously stated that it will not bring in a wealth tax, nor will it further raise corporation tax in its first term, though neither specific tax was mentioned today.)