Keir Starmer has refused to rule out raising national insurance for employers in the Budget.
The Prime Minister said on Tuesday that Labour would keep its promise not to raise taxes on “working people”. But he dodged questions on whether that includes increasing employers’ national insurance contributions.
It comes after reports that the new Labour Government will be introducing tax rises in the Budget, which takes place in a fortnight.
A rise in employers’ national insurance would not mean that employees pay more tax.
Asked whether his vow applied to employers, Starmer told BBC Breakfast: “We were very clear in the manifesto that we wouldn’t be increasing tax on working people and we expressly said that that was income tax, that was NICs etc. So we set that out in the manifesto.”
Pressed on whether it was just employees, he said: “We were very clear in the manifesto that what we were saying is that we’re not going to raise taxes for working people. It wasn’t just the manifesto, we said it repeatedly in the campaign and we intend to keep the promises that we made in our manifesto.
“So I’m not going to reveal to you the details of the Budget, you know that that’s not possible at this stage. What I will say is where we made promises in our manifesto, we will be keeping those promises.” He also said again that the Budget on October 30 would be “tough”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves faces a difficult challenge when she announces her first Budget at the end of the month and needs to square the Government’s promises on taxation with a commitment to keep borrowing under control and avoid a return to austerity.
She will also want to find further ways of closing the £22 billion “black hole” caused by significant overspends in this year’s budget.
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