Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch tore Rachel Reeves apart after the Chancellor broke promises not to raise taxes
Chancellor Rachel Reeves Delivers the Autumn Budget in London (Image: Getty)
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch slammed Rachel Reeves as “shameless” after the Chancellor broke her pledges not to increase taxes. Mrs Badenoch congratulated the Chancellor for delivering her second Budget, adding she hopes she enjoyed it “as it should be her last”. And the Tory leader said: “If she had any decency she would resign.”
Mrs Badenoch told Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer: “If he had a backbone, he would sack her.” She said the Chancellor had delivered “a nightmare before Christmas.” And she said slammed MS Reeves for “wallowing in self-pity”.
“We’ve been fed puff pieces in the Times and FT showing a woman wallowing in self-pity, whining about ‘mansplaining’ and ‘misogyny’. Let me explain to the Chancellor woman-to-woman, people out there aren’t complaining because she’s female, they’re complaining because she’s utterly incompetent.” Mrs Badenoch added: “She is spineless, shameless and completely aimless!”
It followed a Budget in which the Chancellor froze income tax thresholds for three further years, in addition to an existing freeze, which means higher income tax bills for working people. Other personal tax changes include £4.7 billion through charging national insurance on salary-sacrificed pension contributions, despite the Chancellor’s promise not to increase National Insurance for workers.
Mrs Badenoch said: “It’s a total humiliation.” She said Ms Reeves is turning the UK into a “shambolic laughing stock” among international investors. Highlighting the leak of the Budget earlier today, Mrs Badenoch said: “She has become the first Chancellor in history to release the Budget ahead of time.
“This is extraordinary. It tells you everything you need to know about her grip on the Treasury. If she doesn’t resign for breaking her promises she should sure as hell go for this.
“Last year she put up taxes by £40bn, the biggest tax rise in history, she promised she wouldn’t come back for more. Today she’s broken every single one of those promises.”
The Conservative leader said Ms Reeves will go down as the country’s “worst ever chancellor”.
She said: “Household income is down, borrowing goes up every year. Labour are hiking taxes to pay for welfare. This is a Budget for benefit street paid for by working people.”
The Chancellor’s decision to axe the two-child benefit cap, which limits Universal Credit payments for people on low incomes with larger families, will cost £3 billion but cut child poverty. The limit restricted the Universal Credit child element, which is currently £3,500 per year for second and subsequent children, to two children per family apart from children born prior to 6 April
2017 and those who meet certain exemption criteria. Watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the cap’s removal costs £2.3 billion in 2026- 27 and £3.0 billion in 2029-30.
Because of the policy, an estimated 560,000 families see an increase in Universal Credit award averaging £5,310 per year. The Government estimates that this measure will reduce child poverty by 450,000 by 2029-30, relative to the level had the two-child limit remained in place.
The OBR document also confirmed Rachel Reeves’s Budget “raises taxes by amounts rising to £26 billion in 2029-30, through freezing personal tax thresholds and a host of smaller measures”.
The freeze in tax thresholds will result in 780,000 more basic-rate, 920,000 more higher-rate, and 4,000 more additional-rate income tax payers in 2029/30, raking in about £8 billion for the Exchequer
Labour’s failure to stop small boats means taxpayers will spend £1.4 billion more on asylum, including hotels and other accommodation, the Treasury’s official watchdog has warned.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves had pledged to cut asylum spending by £1 billion, but this was dismissed as a fantasy in the analysis of her Budget statement.
The Office for Budget Responsibility said the number of small boat arrivals, and the number of asylum seekers in housing, had risen. It said: “The Home Office Spending Review settlement was made on the basis that the Home Office would fully stop the use of hotels for asylum-seekers in this Parliament, and asylum spending would be £1.1 billion lower at £2.5 billion in 2028-29 compared to 2025-26 plans.
“So far this year, the number of migrants arriving by small boat and asylum seekers in supported accommodation has risen by 19 and 8 per cent, respectively, compared to last year.
“If spending on asylum remained at its 2024-25 level, this would imply £1.4 billion of additional pressure on the Home Office budget by 2028-29.”
