Rachel Reeves may have killed off growth with her raid on employers’ National Insurance contributions, but today comes a reminder that she is nevertheless the relatively mild face of the Starmer government. We can at least be thankful that Angela Rayner is not Chancellor. Labour’s deputy leader has written a memo to Reeves suggesting a number of taxes she would like to see increased, and which she believes – somewhat hopefully – would obviate the need for spending cuts at the next Budget.
There are cabinet ministers who are even more hostile to the idea of low taxes than Reeves herself is
She wants inheritance tax relief on Alternative Investment Market (AIM)-listed shares to be removed altogether (Reeves has merely halved it). She wants the reimposition of a lifetime cap on how much anyone could accumulate in a pension fund before being whacked with a punitive tax – something which Jeremy Hunt abolished and Keir Starmer at first said he would reintroduce, before dropping the idea ahead of the general election.
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