PM insists Reeves in post for ‘many years’ amid calls to rule out tax hikes

Sir Keir Starmer said Rachel Reeves will be Chancellor for “many, many years to come”, as he insisted the Government cannot “tax our way out” of the problems it faces.

The Prime Minister offered strong support to Ms Reeves following recent questions over whether her future in Number 11 was guaranteed amid high Government borrowing costs.

He also sought to dampen talk of an emergency budget after Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch questioned if one was expected.

Mrs Badenoch used her questions to suggest Ms Reeves was not qualified to manage the country’s finances and pressed Sir Keir to rule out any new tax rises this year.

After the Tory leader asked if the country could “afford four more years of his terrible judgments”, Sir Keir described Mrs Badenoch of serving up a “barrage of complete nonsense”.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Mrs Badenoch opened by asking Sir Keir why anyone should “trust a word he says” over businesses who were saying “again and again that his budget means fewer jobs, lower growth and higher borrowing costs”.

Sir Keir said the global economy was experiencing “volatility” which was why he “took the tough and right decisions in the budget to get our finances back in order”.

He told the Commons: “We had to deal with the £22 billion black hole that they left, made difficult cuts, raised taxes to invest in health, public services and housing, vital to stability, vital to growth, and we’ve got an ironclad commitment to our fiscal rules, and she will welcome, no doubt, the inflation figures from this morning.

“But contrast that with the party opposite, they weren’t brave enough in government to take those difficult decisions. They’ve opposed all of our measures to stabilise the economy and promote growth.

“They’re back to the magic money tree, she wants all the benefits of the budget, but she can’t say how she’s going to pay for them. They haven’t changed, they’re still economic vandals and fantasists, imagine where we’d be if they were still in charge.”

Mrs Badenoch highlighted warnings from the British Retail Consortium about price rises linked to Government tax hikes, adding: “The Prime Minister refused to repeat his Chancellor’s promise that she would not come back for more, will he now rule out any new tax rises this year?”

Sir Keir again defended the Government’s budget, before adding: “When it comes to tax, she knows very well the limits of what I can say from this despatch box, but we have an ironclad commitment to our fiscal rules.

“We can’t just tax our way out of the problems that they left us, which is why we put in place tough – they were howling at the spending decisions, they wouldn’t take them, and we’ll stick to those spending decisions and our focus is absolutely on growth.”

Mrs Badenoch faced shouts of “shame” from Labour MPs after she said: “At the budget, Labour were congratulating themselves for having the first female Chancellor instead of ensuring the country had someone actually qualified to do the job.

“The Prime Minister claims he has full confidence in the Chancellor, but the markets clearly do not. Yesterday, the Chancellor repeated her promise to have just one budget per year to provide businesses with certainty.

“The talk in the City is that she can’t meet her fiscal rules, and there will need to be an emergency budget. So does the Prime Minister stand by the Chancellor’s commitment that there will be only one budget this year?”

Sir Keir replied: “She’ll be pleased to know the Chancellor will be in place for many, many years to come. She’ll outstrip that.

“If we all thought that politics was about cheap words, I could criticise their chancellors, but I don’t have enough time to go through all the chancellors that they had.

“We had one budget, that’s what we’re committed to, strong fiscal rules, that’s what we’ll stick to, unlike the party opposite.”

Elsewhere in her questions, Mrs Badenoch called on the Prime Minister to cancel the “disastrous” move to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius then lease back the strategically important military base on Diego Garcia, which is used by the United States.

The Tory leader also questioned Sir Keir over his handling of the case of Tulip Siddiq, who resigned as a Treasury minister after an ethics investigation.

The ministerial standards watchdog said it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq was “not more alert” to the reputational risk caused by her links to her aunt’s political movement in Bangladesh.

Her aunt is former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled into exile after being deposed last year and is facing an investigation by an anti-corruption commission in Bangladesh, with the Labour MP reportedly named as part of the case.

Mrs Badenoch said: “Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner advising Bangladesh, said London properties gifted to the former City minister may be proceeds of robbery. So will the Prime Minister offer Bangladesh the full support of our National Crime Agency in ensuring that any properties bought with stolen funds are properly investigated?”

Sir Keir said the watchdog found there was no breach of the Ministerial Code, adding: “She (Mrs Badenoch) knows that he found there was no wrongdoing and the former minister fully co-operated. She referred herself a week ago Monday, I got the report yesterday and she resigned yesterday afternoon.”

He later took aim at former prime minister Liz Truss, describing her as a “Tory voter in a Labour seat”.

He said: “She was complaining that saying she’d crashed the economy was damaging her reputation. It was actually crashing the economy that damaged her reputation.”