The UK is facing bankruptcy if Labour increases taxes without cutting welfare spending, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has warned.<\/p>\n
The Tory leader accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of plotting a “stealth tax bombshell” in next week’s Budget to fund increased welfare payments because of her failure to cut the benefits bill.<\/p>\n
She added: “If she comes back for more taxes without having serious cuts in public spending, especially on welfare, then she is going to ruin our economy.”<\/p>\n
Labour said Badenoch’s plans would mean a return to austerity and cuts for schools, hospitals and police.<\/p>\n
Reeves is widely expected to scrap the two-child benefit cap, which means low-income families do not receive further benefits when they have a third or subsequent child, to tackle child poverty. <\/p>\n
She is also expected to freeze income tax thresholds to plug a gap in her spending plans, which would mean people would be dragged into paying more tax as wages rise. <\/p>\n
Badenoch said her party would oppose this “every single step of the way”.<\/p>\n
In a speech setting out her party’s plans for the economy, she claimed the government’s U-turn on welfare reforms and the expected scrapping of the two-child benefit cap will leave the chancellor needing to find an extra \u00a38.5bn.<\/p>\n
“If Labour do scrap the two-child benefit cap, the future Conservative government would bring it back,” she told reporters after her speech.<\/p>\n
“The cap makes sure people on benefits have to make the same decisions about having children as everyone else. This is fairness.”<\/p>\n
Badenoch repeated her call for Reeves to be sacked<\/a> if she broke her promise made after last year’s Budget not to come back for more taxes, telling reporters: “If she puts up tax she should get the axe.”<\/p>\n The Tory leader argued that cutting spending was the Christian thing to do, because not doing so would “leave debts for the next generation”.<\/p>\n She offered to send the new Archbishop of Canterbury Dame Sarah Mullally, who in 2018 signed a letter criticising the two-child benefit cap,<\/a> “a briefing on the facts”.<\/p>\n “If we keep this spending going I am afraid we are going to go bankrupt,” she claimed, adding: “There isn’t going to be any money for people in need.”<\/p>\n