During Treasury Questions in the House of Commons this month, in his capacity as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Richard asked Rachel Reeves if we can expect her to further raise taxes on British people and businesses in the Autumn.
Richard Fuller MP said:
I made the point to the Chancellor that in her Spring Statement in March, she rushed through changes to disability benefits to help plug the £14 billion gap in public finances created by her first Labour Budget last year.
In the outlook that accompanied the Spring Statement, the official government economic forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), said their forecasts were based on no changes in tariffs but that if tariffs were imposed (Scenario 2) then the government would have no headroom against their fiscal “rules”.
Now that we are in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s scenario 2 on tariffs, and the Chancellor is once again forecast to be out of room on her fiscal targets, I asked what she will do to update departmental budgets in the June multi-year spending review in order to avoid punishing businesses and people once again with further taxes later this year.
The full exchange can be watched at https://youtu.be/dAcdQihUYFI?si=_O5JcjWOkhTABCEj
