Starmer says Budget ‘based on fairness’ with crackdown on illegal working

Sir Keir Starmer has said next week’s Budget will be “based on fairness” and will spend cash on tackling illegal working as well as reducing “the pull factor” for migrants coming to the UK.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is widely expected to raise taxes on November 26 in order to fill a multi-billion pound gap in her spending plans.

She will hand £1 million to a new team of investigators to root out rule-breaking businesses, No 10 announced on Thursday.

The Prime Minister said it will be “a Labour Budget with Labour values” as he expressed optimism for the future despite widespread gloom about the UK’s economic prospects among the public.

Asked whether the wealthiest will bear the burden, Sir Keir told reporters on his way to the G20 summit in South Africa: “Obviously 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.”

He said the “right decisions” will have to be taken against the backdrop of years of austerity, “a not very good Brexit deal”, the pandemic and the Ukraine war.

“We have to take the decisions 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.”

Meanwhile, Sir Keir said extra money will be spent to clamp down on the shadow economy, as he suggested one of the reasons migrants travel through France to cross the Channel is that it is easier to work illegally here than in other countries.

He told journalists: “We’ve put £1 million with a specialist team to do even more on illegal working. We’ve done a lot more in the last 12 months than has been done ever before, clamping down.

“It is really important. It’s linked really with what the Home Secretary has been saying this week which is about dealing with the pull factors.

“It is too easy to work illegally in the UK, which is why we’re putting this extra money in, setting up the extra resource.”

The new taskforce will co-ordinate with immigration enforcement and HM Revenue & Customs to “ensure swift investigations and robust action against offenders”, No 10 said.

It will report into the Fair Work Agency, a new government body tasked with clamping down on employers who fail to pay minimum wage and exploit workers, set for launch next year.

It builds on ongoing enforcement action against illegal working, with officers making more than 8,000 arrests and raiding more than 11,000 businesses over the past year.

In October, nearly 2,000 sites were raided, almost 700 arrests made and more than £10.7 million in suspected criminal proceeds seized.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has this week unveiled major plans to tighten UK border security, including an overhaul of rules for legal migration and of the asylum system which has drawn criticism from some Labour colleagues.

The Government last month launched a six-week consultation over plans to expand right-to-work checks to include more employers in the so-called gig economy, under which they could face five years in prison or fines of £60,000 for each illegal worker they have hired.

Delivery firms Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats have ramped up real-identity and right-to-work checks to tackle concerns of illegal working through their platforms.