Labour MP comes unstuck as he’s forced to defend £40bn black hole | Politics | News

A Labour MP came unstuck as he was challenged on Question Time to agree that raising taxes on employers would break his party’s general election promise not to.

This week’s programme came from Rotherham with panellists including the left-wing commentator Ash Sarkar, former Tory MP Damian Green and Trade Policy Minister Douglas Alexander.

In their first question, guests were asked by an audience member to answer whether a disputed £40billion black hole in the public finances should be plugged by hiking taxes, via spending cuts or by increasing borrowing.

Host Fiona Bruce challenged Mr Alexander to agree that if Labour were to raise employers’ NI contributions in its first Budget it would be a breach of the party’s manifesto.

The Government this week faced mounting questions over whether its manifesto promise not to raise National Insurance extends to employers’ contributions as well as those made by employees.

Mr Alexander replied: “Well, let’s see what the Budget sets out.” To which Ms Bruce shot back: “But in principle, how can that not be a breach?”

He urged the Question Time host to understand the distinction between working people and businesses, but Ms Bruce was having none of it.

She said: “But you didn’t make that distinction in the manifesto. I’ve got it here – ‘We will not increase National Insurance…’.”

In a heated exchange full of interruptions, Mr Alexander said the taxes Labour would raise, which were mentioned in its manifesto, included VAT on private school fees.

Ms Bruce then interrupted saying: “No, no. It said, ‘We will not increase National Insurance’.” To which Mr Alexander shot back: “And we said we would not raise taxes on working people.”

An exasperated Ms Bruce then ended the argument by saying: “We’re dancing on a pinhead here, but the ‘working people’ thing was not in your manifesto.”

Mr Green, a former Tory MP and ex-deputy prime minister, told viewers the Government seeking to plug a £40bn black hole represents an attempt by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves to try and find excuses to put up taxes because “that’s what Labour governments do”.

He said: “The £22bn figure was made up. The £40bn figure is made up as well…” To which Ms Bruce said the Conservative government has “a very good go” at raising taxes, imposing the highest tax burden since World War Two.

Mr Green said: “And it’s going to get worse. That’s the interesting thing… We’ve already seen it with all these rumours employers’ National Insurance is going to go up.

“It is explicit in the Labour manifesto that they are not going to put National Insurance up. They, apparently, are going to break that promise… Douglas makes the point that the central purpose of this government is to promote growth.

“You don’t promote growth by putting business taxes up in your first Budget and spending some of your first hundred days saying the economy is in a terrible state and will never recover.”