Sir Keir Starmer has given us an idea of who he wants to protect in the budget – but is Rachel Reeves on the same page?
Who counts as a working person will matter a lot next week when the new Labour government unveils what is being billed as a historic budget.
Sir Keir Starmer used the phrase “working people” repeatedly in the general election as he sought to reassure voters he wasn’t going to raise their taxes.
But as this bumper budget comes around, it’s clear that someone’s taxes are going to go up, despite the prime minister repeatedly refusing to acknowledge this in our interview at the Commonwealth leaders summit in Samoa on Thursday. The closest he got was telling me “we’re not going back to austerity” which means no to big spending cuts.
Treasury insiders tell me that the government has to find £40bn to plug gaps in the public finances, and that means tax rises and spending cuts are on the way.
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So taxes are going up, and there are a couple of supplementary questions to this: Who is going to be hit by tax rises?
And, given pretty much all of us with a job might count ourselves as “working people”, are lots of you going to feel let down by the new Labour government should you find yourselves caught in tax rises?
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PM questioned on tax rises
On Thursday, I did get a more contoured definition of who the prime minister really means when he talks about working people.
For a start, he was clear to me that someone who gets their income from assets, such as shares and property, as well as work, wouldn’t come within” Sir Keir’s definition of a working person.
This is a strong hit that rises in capital gains taxes could be on the way and also leans to a bigger point that Sir Keir thinks the wealthy – workers or not – should pay more tax.
Working people are, in his “mind’s eye”, the people who have a “sort of knot in the bottom of the stomach, which if push comes to shove and something happens to me and my family, I can’t just get a cheque book out, even though maybe [I’ve] got a bit of savings”.
“They are the people that, in a way, I came into politics to try and make sure they had secure jobs and didn’t have the anxiety of public services not working, and felt genuinely better off with better opportunities. That’s who I have in my mind’s eye.”
Who might those people be?
Is it a “white van man” hoping that fuel duty won’t go up, or a nurse worried that her council tax could go up?
Is it the millions of workers on the basic rate of income tax that could find themselves dragged into higher tax bands should the chancellor decide to extend the Conservatives’ freezing of tax bands?
The chancellor could raise £7bn a year from that if she extends that beyond 2028. But if she does that on Wednesday, millions of those workers in Sir Keir’s “mind’s eye” might feel let down by this government.
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In the election, it helped the prime minister to have a broad definition of a working person because it meant he could talk to lots of groups of voters.
But now, as we get to the nuts and bolts of who is going to shoulder the burden of plugging gaps in the public finances, the “difficult decisions” as he puts it, are going to bite.
We do now have, at least, a better sense of who he wants to protect in this budget from tax rises. But will his chancellor follow through?
UK
Post Office scandal: At least 8 convictions may be linked to second IT system used by Post Office
At least eight convictions predating the Horizon Post Office scandal are being looked at by the body investigating potential miscarriages of justice, Sky News has learned.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has confirmed it is examining multiple cases of former sub-postmasters affected by Capture software.
The computer accounting system was used in the early 1990s, prior to Horizon being introduced to Post Office branches from 1999 onwards.
Horizon was at the centre of the Post Office scandal and saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly convicted of stealing from their branches.
The Kroll report, commissioned by the government earlier this year, found that Capture had bugs and glitches and there was a reasonable likelihood it had caused cash shortfalls too.
Lord Beamish, the former Labour MP Kevan Jones, has been supporting victims and is calling for the government to extend current legislation to automatically quash convictions.
The Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act was passed in May but does not include Capture victims.
Lord Beamish told Sky News he has raised the issue with the Justice Secretary and called for a House of Lords debate.
“The government are going to have to take this seriously,” he said. “We can’t have a situation where we have a two-tier system where people get exonerated from Horizon and the Capture cases are either forgotten or have to go through a very lengthy legal process to get their names cleared.”
Chris claims his mother was wrongly jailed because of accounting problems with the Post Office software Capture
He added he had “little faith” in the CCRC’s “ability to deal with cases”, after multiple Horizon cases were referred to the body years ago.
“The problem with these cases is the lack of evidence… that has been destroyed or lost so actually proving some of these cases through that process will be very difficult.
“Therefore I think a blanket exoneration like we had with Horizon I think has got to be discussed and considered for these cases.”
The CCRC told Sky News it has five cases under review “in which the Capture IT system could be a factor”.
It also said it is “seeking further information” on eight cases referenced in the Kroll report.
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The CCRC added that the time taken for a case review to be completed was dependent on the “complexity” of each case “and how readily available information about it is”. In a statement, it admitted: “The availability of information can be a particular hurdle in older cases.”
Chris’s mother died earlier this year following a battle with Alzheimer’s and never got to clear her name
Chris Roberts’ mother, Liz Roberts, was convicted in 1999 of stealing £46,000 from the Post Office and spent 13 months behind bars.
Liz, who was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, passed away earlier this year.
Chris said she was jailed four days before he turned 17, and he used to have “nightmares” that she was “going to die in there”.
“There was no evidence of any financial gain because they went through everything. And obviously the money wasn’t in our accounts because it didn’t exist,” he added.
Despite being offered “three deals” by the Post Office to plead guilty, Liz refused and was sent to prison.
Liz Roberts during happier times before she was jailed for theft – her son insists she was innocent
Chris believes that the 2019 High Court win by Horizon victims was a missed opportunity for the Post Office to look back at Capture cases.
“It would have been worth something then because my mum would have died knowing that everybody else knew she was innocent,” he said.
“My dad would have died knowing that the love of his life wasn’t vilified as a criminal.”
Chris wants his mother exonerated and “those actively responsible” to “stand up in court… and justify themselves”.
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Sky’s Adele Robinson examines Britain’s biggest miscarriages of justice
A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: “We were horrified to learn about the issues with the Capture system and are working closely across government to thoroughly examine Kroll’s independent report and consider what action should be taken.
“We continue to listen to postmasters and others who have been sharing their views on the report’s findings since its publication last month.”
Official accounts have revealed for the first time how much the King’s 2023 coronation cost UK taxpayers.
According to the accounts, the government spent £72m on the coronation – the first in Britain since Queen Elizabeth II’s in 1953.
The figure includes £50.3m of costs attributed to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which coordinated the coronation, and £21.7m in costs for the Home Office for the policing of the event.
By comparison, Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral and events during the period of national mourning cost the government an estimated £162m – £74m for the Home Office and £57m for the DCMS as well as costs to the devolved governments.
The figures come from the culture department’s recently released annual report and accounts.
The department said it had “successfully delivered on the central weekend of His Majesty King Charles III’s Coronation, enjoyed by many millions both in the UK and across the globe”.
People walk past a souvenir shop during the coronation. Pic: Reuters
It described the event as a “once-in-a-generation moment” which provided an occasion for the “entire country to come together in celebration”.
Both the King and Queen were crowned at Westminster Abbey in May last year, in a ceremony attended by dignitaries from around the world.
A star-studded concert at Windsor Castle, featuring Take That and stars such as Olly Murs, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie, took place the following night.
It had been described ahead of the event as being a “slimmed-down affair” – with the country still in the grips of the cost-of-living crisis – and accounts show an “underspend” related to the coronation of around £2.8m.
Olly Murs performing at the Coronation Concert. Pic: Reuters
Did coronation boost the economy?
Despite talk of a coronation boost, the UK’s economy actually contracted in the month of May 2023.
However, experts said that was mostly due to the cost of the additional public holiday for the event, which weighed on output.
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Each bank holiday costs the UK economy around £2.3bn, with the extra bank holiday for the late Queen’s funeral estimated to have cost around £2.4bn, according to government figures.
With the extra coronation bank holiday, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed negative growth of 0.1% during May 2023.
However, that was slightly better than economists had predicted ahead of the event.
Prior to the event, economic forecasters, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), had predicted a boost of £337m for the UK’s economy due to the coronation – including £104m in extra pub spending and an estimated £223m spend from tourism to the UK during the period.
Hotel revenue was also said to be up by 54% compared to the same point in the previous year, while bookings for UK-bound flights for the coronation weekend jumped by 149% within 24 hours of the day being announced, according to TravelPort.
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