Chancellor Rachel Reeves will not face an investigation by the prime minister’s ethics adviser over whether she broke the ministerial code with her pre-Budget interventions.Reform UK leader Nigel Farage had asked Sir Laurie Magnus to launch an inquiry arguing that Reeves had breached rules which require ministers to be open and candid.He accused her of failing to give Parliament “the full and truthful picture” of the nation’s finances in the lead-up to the Budget.Reeves has rejected claims she misled the public, insisting she had been “upfront” about the choices she faced.In the build up to the Budget on 26 November, the chancellor had repeatedly warned that a downgrade to the UK’s economic productivity forecasts meant the finances were in a worst state than previously thought. However, she did not make clear that the Office for Budget Responsibility had reported better-than-expected tax receipts which offset the reduction in productivity growth.Opposition parties including Reform and the Conservatives have suggested Reeves deliberately presented an overly-negative picture in order to justify further tax rises to pay for welfare increases. In his letter to Sir Laurie, Farage said: “The chancellor conducted a sustained public and media campaign portraying the public finances as being in a state of collapse in order to prepare political ground for approximately £30bn of tax increases which, on the OBR’s own numbers, were discretionary policy choices rather than unavoidable fiscal necessity.”The British people are now facing the heaviest tax burden in generations on the basis of what increasingly looks like a sustained misrepresentation of the true fiscal positi …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnChancellor Rachel Reeves will not face an investigation by the prime minister’s ethics adviser over whether she broke the ministerial code with her pre-Budget interventions.Reform UK leader Nigel Farage had asked Sir Laurie Magnus to launch an inquiry arguing that Reeves had breached rules which require ministers to be open and candid.He accused her of failing to give Parliament “the full and truthful picture” of the nation’s finances in the lead-up to the Budget.Reeves has rejected claims she misled the public, insisting she had been “upfront” about the choices she faced.In the build up to the Budget on 26 November, the chancellor had repeatedly warned that a downgrade to the UK’s economic productivity forecasts meant the finances were in a worst state than previously thought. However, she did not make clear that the Office for Budget Responsibility had reported better-than-expected tax receipts which offset the reduction in productivity growth.Opposition parties including Reform and the Conservatives have suggested Reeves deliberately presented an overly-negative picture in order to justify further tax rises to pay for welfare increases. In his letter to Sir Laurie, Farage said: “The chancellor conducted a sustained public and media campaign portraying the public finances as being in a state of collapse in order to prepare political ground for approximately £30bn of tax increases which, on the OBR’s own numbers, were discretionary policy choices rather than unavoidable fiscal necessity.”The British people are now facing the heaviest tax burden in generations on the basis of what increasingly looks like a sustained misrepresentation of the true fiscal positi …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
