Rachel Reeves distorted by one person Sky News presenter greatly increase taxes just months after saying he had “no plans” to do so.

Trevor Phillips He asked the chancellor why in the future “any reasonable person would believe a single word you say”.

Reeves was shown a video from June 11, three weeks before the general election, in which he said: “I don’t need to be chancellor to know how messed up the government has made public finances, public services and reality.” It was stated that the tax burden is at the highest level in the last 70 years.

“We don’t need higher taxes, what we need is growth and I don’t want that and I have no plans to raise any taxes beyond the amount we’ve already set.”

But last Wednesday he announced tax increases worth £40bn, partly to fill the £22bn “black hole”. workforce He says he’s the last one left. conservative state.

Phillips told him: “You specifically said you already knew everything you needed to know, yet on Wednesday you increased taxes by £40bn.

“Why would a reasonable person believe a single word you say in the next 15 minutes and stick to it?”

Reeves responded: “I was wrong on June 11th. I didn’t know everything, because when I arrived at the Treasury on July 5, I was taken into a room by senior officials and they revealed the huge black hole in public opinion. Financial issues that everyone knows about during the general election.

“The previous government hid this from the country, hid it from parliament and actually hid it from the official independent forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility.

“When I went into the budget last week I had to get our public finances back on a solid path because we saw in the previous parliament what happens when the government loses control of the public finances and that was the first commitment we made in our manifesto. “It was to bring stability back to the economy.”

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