Sir Keir Starmer has said he is “absolutely” still confident in Chancellor Rachel Reeves after her financial plans sparked rows with pensioners, farmers and employers.
The prime minister said his government needed to “stabilise the economy” when it came into power and has already “attracted investment that wasn’t coming in” during the Tories’ 14 years in Downing Street.
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Sir Keir was speaking from the G20 summit in Brazil, which came as thousands of farmers descended onto Whitehall to protest changes to inheritance tax (IHT) announced in the budget.
In further trouble at home, a letter from the retail sector warned of job losses because of the planned rise to employer national insurance, while government modelling has suggested 100,000 extra pensioners could be in poverty by 2027 because of the winter fuel payment cut.
Asked if he still had confidence in his financial plans, and Ms Reeves, Sir Keir said: “Absolutely.
“We had to stabilise the economy, deal with the £22bn black hole, and we needed to invest in the future of our country.
“The reason we got into such a mess was because the last government refused to take a single difficult decision.”
Sir Keir said that was made clear by the position of new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who he claimed “wants investment into the health service, housing… but doesn’t want to raise any money to pay for it”.
“We have ended that, we have turned a page…the best evidence of that is the investment that is now coming into this country in the way it wasn’t in the last 14 years.”
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