The prime minister has refused to say whether further tax rises will be imposed in the spring statement.

Sir Keir Starmer said the government was in the “early stages” of looking at whether tax rises or spending cuts were needed to meet Labour’s self-imposed fiscal rules.

He would not say if Ms Reeves is looking at further tax cuts to give her more headroom after months of economic downturn, and said the “big decisions” on tax were made in the October budget.

Politics latest: ‘Very important’ US agrees to Chagos deal between UK and Mauritius

Speaking to reporters on the plane to Washington DC to meet Donald Trump, he said: “Obviously I am not going to get ahead of myself until we have made decisions.

“But as I have said before, in terms of the big decisions on tax obviously the budget was the place that we took those decisions – but as ever, going into a statement I am not going to say in advance what we might do and what we might not do.

“But let me not set hares running, the big decisions were in the budget of last year and that’s the way we are approaching this spring statement.”

It is less than a month away from the spring statement on 26 March, when the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will publish its forecast on the UK economy.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will set out the fiscal watchdog’s toplines, which are widely expected to be a reduction in growth outlook and will warn the chancellor is at risk of breaching her fiscal rules.

Former Bank of England governor Lord Mervyn King told Sophy Ridge’s Politics Hub programme on Wednesday that income taxes will have to rise to plug the UK’s financial blackhole.

He said taxes would need to be increased to accommodate both a rise in defence spending, announced on Tuesday, and public services reform.

“The obvious tax to raise is the basic rate of income tax, we will all contribute to it,” he said.

Lord King added he would not have raised employers’ national insurance contributions, as Ms Reeves did in October, but would instead have increased employees’ income tax.

Read more:
Two reasons why Starmer’s meeting with Trump really matters
Starmer insists on security guarantee for Ukraine as he arrives in Washington

The OBR is required to produce two economic forecasts a year, but, the chancellor said she would only give one budget a year to provide stability and certainty on upcoming tax changes.

However, there is speculation about tax changes due to the poor economic climate since the autumn budget.

Inflation has risen to its highest level in 10 months to 3%, there has been a sharp rise in government bond yields and growth has not been as high as expected.

This has led to the chancellor’s £9.9bn headroom against her fiscal rules being all but wiped out.

Ms Reeves could extend a freeze on income tax bands and allowances beyond April 2028, dragging more people into paying more tax as their pay rises.

She is reportedly considering lowering the annual limit on how much people can put into cash ISAs from £20,000 to £4,000.

Former Labour MP Mike Amesbury will walk free after winning an appeal against his 10-week jail sentence for punching a man in the street.

The sentence handed to him on Monday will now be suspended for two years.

It means the Runcorn and Helsby MP will not be jailed, unless he commits any more crimes within that time.

Politics latest: I can trust Trump, says Starmer

Honorary Recorder of Chester Judge Steven Everett, sitting with two magistrates, also ordered Amesbury to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, undertake a 120-day alcohol monitoring requirement, go on an anger management course and carry out 20 days of rehabilitation work.

Amesbury, 55, pleaded guilty in January to beating by assault after punching Paul Fellows, 45, in Main Street, Frodsham, Cheshire, in the early hours of 26 October after his constituent asked him about a bridge closure.

He had been set to serve 40% of his sentence – four weeks – in prison followed by a year on licence.

However, his lawyer launched an appeal shortly after he was sentenced and after the appeal was heard at Chester Crown Court on Thursday, the judge said his jail time should be suspended.

Amesbury arrived at the court in a prison van, having spent three nights in prison, and was led into the building in handcuffs by an officer.

The judge initially ordered a 12-month alcohol monitoring requirement, but changed his mind and said it should be 120 days.

The Labour Party, which suspended Amesbury shortly after the incident, said he would not be allowed back into the party after his original sentencing.

However, he remains an independent MP and will continue to receive his £91,000 salary under parliamentary rules, which state an MP only has their salary removed when they are no longer an MP.

Amesbury has been urged to resign by Labour and Reform but has not done so and a recall petition cannot be issued until he has exhausted any appeals. He has not yet indicated if he will appeal his latest sentence.

A recall petition kickstarts a by-election if 10% of an MP’s constituents sign it.

Read more:
Yvette Cooper calls for new Runcorn MP
Starmer refuses to say if further tax rises will be imposed

Footage replayed in court on Thursday, showed Amesbury punching Mr Fellows in the head, knocking him to the ground then punching him five more times.

He was heard saying: “You won’t threaten your MP again will you, you f****** soft lad?”

The hearing was told Amesbury gave a prepared statement in a police interview where he initially claimed he had been approached by a man “shouting and screaming” about local and national matters, including a local swing bridge and immigration.

In the statement, he told police: “I thought I was about to be physically assaulted by this male. I was terrified and felt vulnerable and cornered by the male and others in the group.”

He said the man’s “arms were swinging” and he thought there was no option but to “defend” himself.

Judge Everett said: “What he said to police doesn’t seem to fit in with the CCTV in pretty well any respect.”

Amesbury’s barrister told the court he had spent three nights in prison, “an experience he will never forget, certainly”.

He said the “public shaming” and “embarrassment” had a huge impact on Amesbury, who he said “will learn a painful lesson”.

I’ve been on quite a few trips now to the White House with successive prime ministers, but I can’t remember one that mattered as much as this. 

As Keir Starmer himself puts it, “everything has changed” and the prime minister finds himself negotiating with an old ally that is looking at the post-war world order afresh and doesn’t much like what it sees.

As Donald Trump appears to abandon the role the US took in the world during the Second World War and is now looking away from Europe and Ukraine, Starmer’s task is to try to win his attention, and support, once more.

Politics latest: PM’s ‘very stupid decision’ condemned

The prime minister’s two goals when he meets President Trump on Thursday are to help persuade him to put in place US security guarantees for Ukraine to deter Russian aggression post any peace deal, and dissuade President Trump from imposing tariffs on the UK.

That’s why, when it comes to UK security and economy – the two principal foundations of the Starmer administration – this meeting, this relationship, really matters.

It might be too much to say President Trump has the power to derail the Starmer project, but he does have in his gift the power to make Starmer’s twin task of guaranteeing British security and delivering economic growth far more challenging.

So the stakes are high for Britain and on the plane over to Washington that jeopardy was obvious to see.

When the prime minister came down to the back of the plane to answer questions from journalists travelling with him, he began the session with us by saying he had a lot of important things to discuss and was going to keep his answers short.

He then assiduously stuck to an agreed script, weighing each answer carefully as he swerved a number of questions on Ukraine and trade by saying he “wasn’t going to get ahead of discussions”, as he praised President Trump, referenced the special relationship as often as he could and insisted again the UK would not pick between the US and Europe.

Read more:
Trump threatens 25% tariffs on EU
CIA to look at UK backdoor ‘request’

From the PM’s trip to Ukraine in January when he all but confirmed to Sky News that he was prepared to put British boots on the ground in a peacekeeping force, to his language around Europe stepping up at NATO in February, the European summit last week in Paris and then this week’s big commitment to accelerate the UK’s defence spending, the Number 10 team have been building up to this meeting, step by step.

But they are also all too aware that a positive outcome isn’t guaranteed when it comes to President Trump – and much will rest on what they find when Keir Starmer and Donald Trump meet in the room.

“We honestly don’t know what’s in his mind,” said one senior figure who has been war gaming the trip.

There were already bumps before the prime minister even landed. As Keir Starmer told reporters on the plane over that the security guarantees around any Ukraine peace deal “had to be sufficient to deter Putin from coming again” (and that requires a US military backstop in the minds of the Europeans), President Trump told reporters he was “not going to make security guarantees beyond very much”. “We’re gonna have Europe do that…Europe is their next door neighbour.”

Those remarks are perhaps not the ones the Number 10 team were hoping to hear, but they have a rule now to focus not on what Trump says, but what he actually does.

Much of what happens in the next 24 hours will be beyond the control of Sir Keir Starmer, but he has at least prepared the ground as best he can with a president who hates criticism, loves flattery and is very transactional.

👉 Follow Trump 100 on your podcast app 👈

Starmer goes to Washington full of praise of President Trump – a leader he said on the plane over that he trusts – and a concrete pledge to put British troops into a peacekeeping force and lift UK defence spending, a key Trump ask of all NATO allies.

He has done the groundwork, now it comes down to the art of the deal.