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Prime minister Keir Starmer has defended chancellor Rachel Reeves and said “there was no misleading” ahead of the Budget.
Reeves has been accussed of misleading the public with an “overly bleak” picture when she appeared to say the government would break its promise to not increase income tax rates due to the UK’s “weaker than previously thought” productivity.
However, a letter published by the OBR said it provided the government with forecasts showing that its productivity downgrade was offset by increases in real wages and inflation.
But responding to journalists after delivering a speech in London on Monday, the prime minister said there was “no misleading”. He said he didn’t accept that the OBR figures gave the government an “easy starting point” and argued that that they showed productivity had been revised down so the government would have had £16bn less in revenue by 2029-30.
Starmer admitted there was a point where he considering breaking a manifesto pledge of “some significance” but it became clear we “might be able to do what we needed to do with our priorities without that manifesto breach”.
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