Robert Jenrick slams 'Halloween horror show' as Rachel Reeves dubbed 'compulsive liar'

Robert Jenrick has accused Rachel Reeves of acting like a "compulsive liar" after raising taxes by £40billion in the budget.

The Tory leadership candidate called yesterday's budget a "Halloween horror show".

Speaking to Kay Burley on Sky News, he said: "This was the biggest political heist in modern British history. £40billion of tax rises hurting people across this country.

"Just three months ago, the Labour party won the election on a pledge not to raise taxes. I'm afriad Rachel Reeves is acting like a compulsive liar.

"She said during the general election she wasn't going to raise taxes. She just has. She said she wasn't going to increase debt. She just massively increased debt. And then after the election she invented that there was a blackhole.

"The public will not trust this Labour government. They're making it up to justify immense tax rises that are going to hurt the economy and hurt peope' working lives."

Mr Jenrick later added that Ms Reeves has been "telling a pack of lies for years".

Ms Reeves defended her tax raid on businesses and the wealthy, insisting she had taken the "right decisions" at the Budget.

Told that before the general election she had promised 30 times that Labour would not increase taxes beyond what had already been set out in the party's manifesto, the Chancellor told Sky News: "The circumstances that I inherited are not the ones that I chose.

"We inherited a huge gap between what the previous government had committed in spending and what they actually told the public about.

"I could have swept that under the carpet and pretend it didn't exist... I didn't want to do that, I wanted to be open and honest, to wipe the slate clean, to put our public finances on a stable trajectory..."

She added: "It wasn't easy decisions yesterday, I recognise that for some businesses they will be paying more taxes, I recognise that for some of the wealthiest people in our country they will be paying more taxes.

"But I felt they were the right decisions in the circumstances that I faced."

Ms Reeves said she did not want to repeat the choices made in her first Budget "ever again" and could not guarantee she would raise income tax thresholds in future.

Earners have been dragged into paying more tax as the current thresholds will remain frozen until 2028.

Asked if she could guarantee they will rise in line with inflation after this, Ms Reeves told Times Radio: "I'm not going to be able to write future budgets, but look, this was an exceptional Budget.

"This Budget was to wipe the slate clean after the mismanagement and the cover-up of the previous government.

"I had to make big choices. I don't want to repeat a Budget like this ever again, but it was necessary to get our public finances and our public services on a stable trajectory.

"I'm not going to be coming back in the spring for more money. I've committed to only have annual budgets, rather than the twice-yearly budgets we had from the previous government, to give families and businesses certainty. This was an exceptional budget."