Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride faced tough questioning on GB News after criticising Nigel Farage's tax cut promises ahead of the Reform UK leader's major speech today.
Farage is expected to announce several major policy pledges today, including tax breaks for married couples, scrapping the two-child benefit cap, and reinstating winter fuel allowance for pensioners.
In his speech in Westminster today, Farage is set to argue that Britain faces an "existential crisis" due to plummeting birth rates, with figures showing women in England and Wales had an average of just 1.44 children between 2022 and 2023 - the lowest rate on record.
According to a draft seen by the Daily Mail, Farage will say: "The collapsing birth rate in the UK, now well below the rates needed, is an existential crisis for our country."
Mel Stride blasted Nigel Farage for his tax cut promises
GB News
Stride told GB News: “Reform, of course, have done well out of the fact that this is a deeply unpopular Labour Government.
“They've done well out of the fact that we have had a crushing general election defeat, but they are now coming under more scrutiny, and Nigel Farage today, I believe, is going to stand up and say that they would reinstate the winter fuel payments, that they would also abolish the two child limit, meaning that if you have more than two children on benefits, the taxpayer will pay benefits towards the cost of those decisions.
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“And these are big spending commitments. That's about £5 billion worth of spending right there, on top of manifesto commitments, they came forward with.”
Emily Carver said: "Hasn't your leader already said that they would have asked the the winter fuel allowance decision from from Labour?
"So Kemi Badenoch has already committed herself to what is it £1.5 billion of spending reversing that. So it's not far off, is it?"
Stride said: "We need tax cuts. We need to get the tax cut burden down. What I don't like are things that are not thought through, that end up costing people in their living standards up and down the country, and damaging the economy.
“What the government has done is to mismanage the economy, destroy a lot of growth and put us in a very parlous position when it comes to the public finances with rising tax rates. That's not right.
“What Nigel Farage is doing is just simply running around saying, well, everybody can have whatever they want, including lots of tax cuts. Well, that's fine, if he can tell us exactly, rigorously how he's going to pay for them.
"Otherwise, if he gets into government with that approach, the markets are going to run a mile.”
Farage is expected to announce several major policy pledges today
NIGEL FARAGEEamonn Holmes said: "It's an obvious ploy and play to a Red wall constituency, isn't it? That's who they're appealing to and it's an area which you can't appeal to."
Farage's proposed transferable marriage tax allowance would exempt one spouse from paying tax on the first £25,000 of their income, while the other would enjoy a tax-free income of £20,000.
Farage will also pledge to fully reinstate the winter fuel allowance for pensioners in a bid to appeal to Left-leaning Labour voters.
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