PM says leaders should ‘stick to their word’ but fails to reaffirm tax pledge

Sir Keir Starmer has said it is “important that politicians stick to their word”, even as he refused to rule out manifesto-busting tax rises on working people in next week’s crunch Budget.

The Prime Minister declined to recommit to manifesto pledges on tax despite being asked 12 times during a broadcast interview during his trip to the G20 summit in South Africa.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is widely expected to raise levies on November 26 in an effort to bridge a multi-billion-pound gap in her spending plans.

Asked whether leaders should maintain pledges, Sir Keir told Sky News: “Yes, it is important that politicians stick to their word.”

He added that “we’ve obviously got big decisions to make in the Budget” which comes against “a very difficult backdrop”.

Ms Reeves is grappling with weak economic growth, persistent inflation and an expected downgrade to official productivity forecasts as she prepares her statement.

Sir Keir also pointed to years of austerity, a “botched” Brexit deal, the pandemic and the Ukraine war.

The Prime Minister evaded questions on whether Labour’s pre-election pledge to voters would be broken, despite multiple follow-ups including on whether income tax thresholds will be frozen.

The Tories have said an extension of the freeze in the thresholds would amount to a breach of Labour’s manifesto promise not to hit people in work with extra tax.

Earlier, the Chancellor said Britain cannot continue to “muddle through” and must take “a different path” on the economy.

She told The Times Magazine that the country could not continue on its current trajectory.

But she admitted she was “not even sure any more what the popular path is” amid calls for a wealth tax from some politicians and heavy tax and spending cuts from others.

She said: “There are lots of people who say cut taxes and the economy will grow, but what spending would they cut?”

On Friday, she suffered a further blow as official figures showed Government borrowing was £3 billion higher in October than the Office for Budget Responsibility had expected.

In her interview, Ms Reeves said: “Borrowing is too high, but you can’t cut it overnight. Public services are a mess, but we haven’t got loads of money to throw at them and we have to use what we’ve got well.

“We can’t just carry on like this and muddle through. We have to make some decisions to get on a different path.”

But she also hit out at her critics, saying she was “sick of people mansplaining how to be Chancellor to me”.

Suggesting at least some of the criticism was motivated by sexism from “boys who now write newspaper columns”, she said: “I recognise that I’ve got a target on me. You can see that in the media; they’re going for me all the time. It’s exhausting.

“But I’m not going to let them bring me down by undermining my character or my confidence. I’ve seen off a lot of those boys before and I’ll continue to do so.”

Asked about her comments, Downing Street said the Prime Minister “is committed to equality, women’s rights”.

“You have a Cabinet that has a number of extremely able, powerful women in key positions,” Sir Keir’s spokesman said.