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Tax raids on pensioners not punishment for voting Brexit, Starmer insists
PM’s comments come as he again refuses to rule out plans to end single person’s discount on council tax
Tax rises affecting pensioners are not a punishment for voting Brexit, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
Speaking on a trip to Washington to visit Joe Biden, the US president, the Prime Minister again refused to rule out plans to end the single person’s discount on council tax.
Such a move has been described as the “widow’s tax” because it will affect millions of elderly people.
It comes after Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor said she would remove the winter fuel allowance from all elderly people except those on pension credit.
Sir Keir was asked whether tax rises were a “punishment beating” for the fact that many pensioners voted Brexit and few vote Labour. He replied: “No, absolutely not.”
The single person’s discount knocks 25 per cent off the council tax bill of a person living alone, reflecting the fact that they use fewer council services.
The Prime Minister went on to talk about Budget plans but did not rule out removing the single person’s discount.
“Let’s just try to quash this now,” he said. “The Budget is on Oct 30. “So between now and then you are all going to ask me questions, as you did before the election – will you rule out X, Y, Z?
“And knowing that I’m not going to say before the Budget what we’re going to do, you will then write a story saying ‘refused to rule out X, Y, Z’.
“I’m not going to say before the Budget what we’re going to do. That does not mean that I’m ruling in anything that you might be putting to me, it simply means, like every prime minister, we’re not going to reveal what’s in the Budget before we get to it. We did this in the election all the way through.”
Sir Keir was then asked why he had ruled out other potential Budget measures, such as taking free bus passes from pensioners and, asked why he would not rule out the single person’s discount, he said: “We’ve got to look at everything in the round.”
Rachel Reeves has warned of tough decisions in the Budget to help fill a £22 billion black hole that she says was left by the Tories.