The Budget announcement by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was "the last desperate act of a party that has failed", Keir Starmer told MPs, in response to the Spring Budget.
Speaking in the House of Commons today (March 6) - after a rowdy Budget speech, the Labour leader said the government’s announcement showed the Conservatives "were giving with one hand and taking even more with the other.
"Britain [is] in a recession.. and despite measures today, the highest tax burden for 70 years”, he said.
Starmer commented: “Over 14 years we have seen our fair share of delusion. A prime minister who thinks the cost of living is starting to ease, a former prime minister who still thinks crashing the pound was the right path for Britain.
“The new entry in this hall of infamy is the chancellor, who breezes into this hall in a recession and tells everyone that everything is on track.
Because we have campaigned to lower the tax burden on working people over the whole parliament, we will support the cuts to NI.Sir Kier Starmer, Labour Party leader“The story of this parliament is devastatingly simple: a Conservative party stubbornly clinging to the failed ideas of the past, unable to generate the growth working people need, and forced by that failure to ask them to pay more and more for less and less.
“As the desperation grows they torch their reputation for fiscal responsibility ... while working people pay the price.”
His comments came after the chancellor cut national insurance contributions for employed and self-employed people by 2p in the pound in his Budget.
He also abolished non-dom tax, so that from April 2025 new arrivals into the UK will not be required to pay any tax on foreign income and gains in the first four years of their UK residency.
But after four years those who continue to live in the UK will pay the same tax as other UK residents.
Another big announcement was the introduction of a British Isa to encourage savers to invest in UK assets.
Multiple dwellings relief for stamp duty land tax was also abolished.
Earlier today the the Office for Budget Responsibility announced it expected inflation to drop below 2 per cent in Autumn, while GDP was forecast to expand by 0.8 per cent this year.
Starmer confirmed the Labour Party would support the cuts to national insurance, but heavily criticised the government for dragging more people into higher taxes with frozen thresholds and not honoring a promise made by Sunak in 2022 that there would be a cut in income tax from 20-19 per cent in 2024.
Income tax promises "in tatters"
Starmer also said: “Because we have campaigned to lower the tax burden on working people over the whole parliament, we will support the cuts to NI.
“But I notice that in 2022 when the PM was chancellor he made this promise: 'I can confirm in 2024 for the first time [in 16 years], the basic rate of income tax will be cut from 20-19 per cent'. Having briefed all week that an interim cap was coming, that promise is in tatters now.”
In his speech, Starmer questioned the lack of urgency on affordable housing, uncertainty about whether the plans to increase childcare entitlements in April would actually happen, and the government’s slow action over the national blood scandal.
He added: “Those who broke our economy cannot be trusted to repair it. Today’s budget should have been about the government showing it understood the challenges.
“It could even have been a moment of contrition; a reflection on their fiscal restlessness. There is no path to economic stability with the party in power.”
Starmer ended his speech by challenging Rishi Sunak to call for a general election on May 2.
