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Sir Keir Starmer has denied he and the chancellor misled the public and the cabinet over the state of the UK’s public finances ahead of the budget.
The prime minister told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby “there was no misleading”, following claims he and Rachel Reeves deliberately said public finances were in a dire state, when they were not.
Politics latest: Reeves says Cabinet briefed on morning of budget
He said a productivity review by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which provides fiscal forecasts to the government, meant there would be £16bn less available so the government had to take that into account.
“To suggest that a government that is saying that’s not a good starting point is misleading is wrong, in my view,” Sir Keir said.
Cabinet ministers have said they felt misled by the chancellor and prime minister, who warned public finances were in a worse state than they thought, so they would have to raise taxes, including income tax, which they had promised not to in their party manifesto.
At last Wednesday’s budget, Ms Reeves unveiled a record-breaking £26bn in tax rises, although an income tax increase was not included.
The OBR published the forecasts it provided to the chancellor in the two months before the budget, which showed there was a £4.2bn headroom on 31 October – ahead of that warning about possible income tax rises on 4 November.
Sir Keir added: “There was a point at which we did think we would have to breach the manifesto in order to achieve what we wanted to achieve.
“Later on, it became possible to do it without the manifesto breach. And that’s why we came to the decisions that we did.”
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