Reform UK’s income tax plans ‘to cost up to £80bn’ warns IFS – UK politics live | Politics
IFS: Reform UK's plans on income tax will cost between £50bn and £80bn
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said Reform UK’s plans to raise the threshold for paying income tax to £20,000 would cost between £50bn and £80bn.
PA Media reports Stuart Adam, a senior economist at the research institute, said the announcements on winter fuel and the two-child benefit cap were “dwarfed” by the tax policy.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme: “Those are all significant things, and they are high-profile new public announcements, but actually they are all still dwarfed by some of the big policies that were in the manifesto last year, and today Nigel Farage recommitted to increasing the income tax allowance to £20,000, which depending on details might cost £50bn, £60bn, £70bn, £80bn.”
Where Farage did give some detail in the speech, his rationale for being able to afford it boiled down to “we will do things differently”. He said:
You will all be lined up in your droves to say to me, how on earth can you afford all of this? How on earth can you afford £5bn here or £5bn there, almost forgetting that the national debt is now £2.8tn, and that not just the last government, but this one too, are hopelessly adrift when it comes to government borrowing.
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 £40bn plus pounds 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.
We will scrap the DEI agenda, which is costing the taxpayer up to £7bn pounds a year throughout the public sector. And yes, we see considerable savings to be made amongst the quangos.
So yes, I do accept that these proposals, especially the one of lifting to £20,000 the level at which people start paying tax. I accept that it’s expensive.
But I genuinely believe that we can pay for it because we’re not ideologically tied to the same ideas upon which we believe the Conservative and Labour governments have gone so wrong over the course of the last few years.
Key events
Walthamstow’s Labour MP Stella Creasy has posted to social media about Nigel Farage’s earlier comments on legal abortion access in the UK, saying “It’s inevitable a man who wants to repeat the Trump playbook would begin attacking abortion access at some point – that’s why we have to protect it for the 250,000 who have one every year by making it a human right.”
Creasy wrote for the Guardian a fortnight ago about the battle to decriminalise abortion and future-proof the law against anti-abortion extremists.
The UK sustainable investment and finance association (Uksif) CEO has pushed back against Nigel Farage’s earlier comments about the cost of net zero.
The Reform UK leader claimed earlier that the government’s net zero policy “is costing the exchequer an extraordinary £40bn plus pounds every year.”
James Alexander said:
The UK’s decades-old dependency on fossil fuels has left households exposed to spiralling bills tied to the international energy markets. We cannot afford to continue to throw money at the technologies of the past.
Renewable energy has already outstripped coal, oil and gas as the cheaper alternative. This means investing in solar and wind power generation now makes financial sense and gives us access to cheap, clean, homegrown sources of energy, which the country needs to grow the economy and create thousands of jobs.
Green co-leader Ramsay: 'absurd' Farage trying to 'rebrand himself as someone who cares about working families'
The co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales, Adrian Ramsay, has responded to Nigel Farage’s speech from earlier, saying it is “absurd that he’s trying to rebrand himself as someone who cares about working families” and that the Reform UK leader is “fighting for the fossil fuel lobby.”
In a series of posts to social media, the MP for Waveney Valley said:
Nigel has never lifted a finger to help working people – and he’s not going to start now. It’s absurd that he’s trying to rebrand himself as someone who cares about working families when he couldn’t even be bothered to show up to vote for scrapping the two-child benefit cap in July.
He calls himself a patriot, but he’s the very opposite. Real patriotism is about looking after one another, not turning people against each other for political gain.
I again invite Nigel to a public debate on climate change. If he believes what he says, let’s see if his bluster holds up in a full hour-long TV debate.
Net zero, done right, is our best shot at building a resilient economy, lowering bills for families, and preventing climate catastrophe. If Farage really cared about working people, he’d back a sector growing three times faster than the rest of the economy. But he won’t.
Why? Because Farage isn’t fighting for working people. He’s fighting for the fossil fuel lobby and attacking net zero is exactly what they want.
IFS: Reform UK's plans on income tax will cost between £50bn and £80bn
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said Reform UK’s plans to raise the threshold for paying income tax to £20,000 would cost between £50bn and £80bn.
PA Media reports Stuart Adam, a senior economist at the research institute, said the announcements on winter fuel and the two-child benefit cap were “dwarfed” by the tax policy.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme: “Those are all significant things, and they are high-profile new public announcements, but actually they are all still dwarfed by some of the big policies that were in the manifesto last year, and today Nigel Farage recommitted to increasing the income tax allowance to £20,000, which depending on details might cost £50bn, £60bn, £70bn, £80bn.”
Where Farage did give some detail in the speech, his rationale for being able to afford it boiled down to “we will do things differently”. He said:
You will all be lined up in your droves to say to me, how on earth can you afford all of this? How on earth can you afford £5bn here or £5bn there, almost forgetting that the national debt is now £2.8tn, and that not just the last government, but this one too, are hopelessly adrift when it comes to government borrowing.
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 £40bn plus pounds 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.
We will scrap the DEI agenda, which is costing the taxpayer up to £7bn pounds a year throughout the public sector. And yes, we see considerable savings to be made amongst the quangos.
So yes, I do accept that these proposals, especially the one of lifting to £20,000 the level at which people start paying tax. I accept that it’s expensive.
But I genuinely believe that we can pay for it because we’re not ideologically tied to the same ideas upon which we believe the Conservative and Labour governments have gone so wrong over the course of the last few years.
The day so far
Nigel Farage says prime minister Keir Starmer doesn’t believe in anything, and that “while I don’t bear him any personal grudge, I don’t think there’s any malice in him at all” he did not appear to have a plan for government
Farage said it is Reform UK policy to lift the two-child benefit cap, and the removal of a universal winter fuel allowance. He says this is “not because we support a benefits culture, but because we believe for lower paid workers, this actually makes having children just a little bit easier for them. It’s not a silver bullet. It doesn’t solve all of those problems, but it helps them.”
Farage also said that the recently announced deal with the EU is “a total sell-out and something that [Keir Starmer] promised he wouldn’t do.”
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has said that removing the two-child benefit cap is “not off the table” as she defended Labour’s record on introducing measures to tackle child poverty
Labour party chair Ellie Reeves has said that Nigel Farage cares only about his own “own self-interest” ahead of the Reform UK leader giving a speech this morning in which he is expected to call Keir Starmer unpatriotic
Shadow chancellor Mel Stride has also been on the media round this morning, and also been attacking Reform UK. Appearing on Times Radio, and with it pointed out to him that the Conservatives were currently fourth in national polling, Stride said “Look, where we are is in a multi-party system at the moment, under first past the post”
Nearly half of all “red wall” voters disapprove of the way Starmer’s government has dealt with benefits-related policy, a poll has found, as ministers faced continued pressure over winter fuel and disability payments, and the two-child benefit cap
More than 100 of the UK’s most high-profile disabled people have called on the prime minister to abandon “inhumane and catastrophic plans to cut disability benefits”
The co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales, Adrian Ramsay, has renewed his call for Russia to face greater sanctions. Posting to social media, the MP for Waveney Valley said “Putin has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian civilians because he thinks he’ll face no consequences
The last question came from the Guardian’s very own Kiran Stacey, who asked Farage whether he thinks the abortion time limit should come down and whether he thinks there should be stricter buffer zones around clinics.
Farage said:
I think issues around this [assisted dying], issues around abortion are all a matter of personal conscience. I am pro-choice but I think it’s ludicrous that we can allow abortion up to 24 weeks but if a child is born prematurely at 22 weeks, your local hospital will move heaven and earth – and probably succeed – in that child surviving and going on and living a normal life.
He added that he thinks the law is “totally out of date” and the current situation is “irrational”. And that concluded the press conference in which Farage challenged prime minister Keir Starmer to a debate in a working men’s club in the so-called red wall.
The Reform leader was typically reluctant to explain in any way how he hoped to get his numbers to add up – and perhaps the coming years of Reform-led local administrations will give the electorate a clearer view on that – but, as usual, his shtick is all about vibes and tapping into a mood of fear and uncertainty across the UK.
He is right about one thing though; support for the two main political parties is collapsing at an unprecedented rate. Whether or not that translates to the ballot box to sweep Farage to No 10 at the next general election remains to be seen.
But, as he says himself: history suggests it is not possible for Reform to win – but current circumstances (and recent polls) suggest otherwise.
It seems to be fast becoming received wisdom that the deputy PM Angela Rayner would be a better match-up for Farage at the next general election – although she has said that she never wants to lead her party.
However, Farage has been asked how he would view her as a potential opponent. He said:
Well, at least she is real. None of the rest are. I don’t think she’s lied on her CV, I’m not sure she’s got a CV. She is who she is.
What we have learned is … her ideas on tax and savings are even more radical than that of Rachel Reeves and she tends, on certain economics, to be way, way out on the left.
Farage was asked how his party would have handled Brexit negotiations with the European Union differently and whether he would undo the progress made recently by the Labour government.
He said the prime minister has never got over the referendum result and says he would not have gone back to the ECJ.
He added:
What I would have done is said what you got from Frost and Johnson is that you were given four years for your fleets to continue to fish in British waters. That was your transition period; you’re out now.
He is now being asked if he really could be the next prime minister and replies:
History would suggest the answer to your question is no. Circumstances suggest the answer is yes. Something extraordinary is happening. The collapse of confidence in two political parties that have pretty much merged.
Farage is now taking questions and asked more about how he is going to pay for his pledges for winter fuel payments and ending the two-child benefit cap. He is asked if he has “a magic money tree”.
He again brings up net zero, DEI initiatives and the costs of housing asylum seekers.
A reporter has flagged that the Institute for Fiscal Studies says “the sums don’t add up”.
Nigel Farage is asked about the row in Scotland over a Reform UK advert featuring Anas Sarwar, and he plays a clip of Labour’s Scottish leader to defend the ad.
He is also asked whether Reform UK’s policies towards married couples suggests he wants the marriage rate to go up and the divorce rate go down. Nigel Farage says “Look, I’m not the pope”. Factcheck not required for that. He says children from stable families do better and he wants to encourage that, although that doesn’t necessarily mean marraige.
He says “It probably isn’t very funny. I can’t pretend we’re perfect” when asked about a Reform election leaflet that apparently depicted “Angela Rayner, Bridget Phillipson and Rachel Reeves as cows said to be sent to the abattoir”. He declines to say whether it was “misogynistic to depict female cabinet ministers as cows, and is it appropriate to suggest that they’re going to be sent to the abattoir if MPs have been killed in recent years?” as Archie Mitchell from the Independent asked.
