The Reform UK leader has vowed to reinstate the winter fuel payment if he becomes PM – do you believe him?
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Nigel Farage holds a press conference in Westminster (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage has announced his party would “absolutely reverse” the winter fuel payment cuts and scrap the two-child benefit cap if he became Prime Minister. The Reform UK leader addressed the media at a press conference in Westminster, where he said that the spending commitments would be funded by scrapping DEI and Net Zero.
“The national debt is now £2.8tn, and that’s not just the last government, but this one too. [They] are hopelessly adrift when it comes to government borrowing”, he said.
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The arch-Brexiteer added: “We are going to make big savings. We will stand here before you in one year’s time and show you the excessive costs that we’ve taken out of local government and at a national level.
“If we win the next election, we will scrap net zero, something that is costing the Exchequer an extraordinary £40 billion plus every year. There will be no more asylum hotels or houses of multiple occupancy. People who come here illegally, across the channel or on the back of lorries will not be allowed to stay.”
He went on: “We will scrap the DEI agenda, which is costing the taxpayer up to £7 billion a year throughout the public sector, and yes, we see considerable savings to be made amongst the quangos.”
The speech is designed to put pressure on the prime minister, who last week announced he would cave to public pressure and dissenting voices within his own party and renege on the cuts to winter fuel payments. He also wants to scrap the two-child benefit cap, but doing so would cause an even bigger headache for embattled Chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
Ms Reeves is trying to plug gaps in the public finances without raising taxes, but Labour’s recent policy U-turn and its crack down on migration and public sector pay deals, means economists believe the taxpayer will be slapped with a bigger bill.
Stephen Millard, acting director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), told The Telegraph: “It is pretty much inevitable now that she will have to raise one of those big taxes.”
The economist warned that the Chancellor may have to raise between £10bn and £30bn from taxpayers, in order to foot the bill of the policy U-turns. This comes after her eye-watering £40bn worth of tax rises last year.
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said Ms Reeves was “out of her depth” and added: “Rachel Reeves, our tin foil Chancellor, has folded at every turn – rewriting fiscal rules and then constantly teetering on the edge of breaking them, while at the same time fuelling speculation over welfare U-turns.”
