British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has strongly defended last week’s Budget and rejected accusations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves misled the public about the state of the public finances in the run-up to the fiscal statement.
Speaking at a London community centre on Monday, he described himself as “proud” of the measures, which he said confronted economic reality while protecting public services and addressing child poverty.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and other opposition figures have accused Reeves of deliberately painting an overly bleak picture of the economy to justify tax rises, with some claiming she “lied to the public.”
The row intensified after the Office for Budget Responsibility documents showed that a £16bn hit from weaker productivity forecasts had been largely offset by higher-than-expected wage growth and resulting tax receipts — information the Treasury possessed before Reeves’s 4 November Downing Street news conference.
Critics say her repeated refusal to rule out income-tax rate increases, despite Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledge against them, amounted to laying the ground for breaking that promise.
The Prime Minister told reporters the government initially believed the productivity downgrade left a significant shortfall, forcing serious consideration of raising income-tax rates.
He said subsequent data made that unnecessary, allowing the Budget to raise £26bn through other measures — including extending the freeze on income-tax and National Insurance thresholds — while keeping rates unchanged.
“There was no misleading,” Starmer repeated, emphasising the need for a larger fiscal buffer and describing the final package as “fair choices.”
Opposition parties, including the Conservatives and Reform UK, have called for Reeves to resign or face an independent ethics probe; she and Starmer have rejected the claims.