Labour’s Ellie Reeves said Reform UK’s election manifesto ‘included billions of pounds worth of unfunded spending pledges’ – as Nigel Farage prepares to announce new commitments
Labour has launched a blistering attack on Nigel Farage’s “unfunded spending pledges” – as the Reform UK leader prepares for a major speech.
Party chair Ellie Reeves accused the ex-UKIP leader, who praised Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget, of only caring about his “own self-interest”. In a speech on Tuesday, Mr Farage looks set to commit to ending the two-child benefit limit in a brazen attempt to woo Labour voters.
The Reform UK leader will say the winter fuel payments should be restored in full after Keir Starmer’s U-turn last week in the Commons. Reports over the weekend also suggested he will launch a personal attack on the PM as “one of the most unpatriotic Prime Ministers in our history”.
But ahead of the speech, Ms Reeves said: “Nigel Farage, a private-educated stockbroker and career politician, has only ever cared about his own self-interest and personal ambition, never about what is good for working people in this country.
“His Reform manifesto included billions of pounds worth of unfunded spending pledges but did not commit to the Triple Lock. Farage must urgently clarify whether he will cut the state pension to pay for his reckless tax cuts. “
At the general election last year the Reform UK manifesto was ridiculed. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said at the time: “The sums in this manifesto do not add up.”
Mr Farage’s speech comes as Mr Starmer faces mounting pressure over welfare policies and pressure to reverse the two-child benefit limit. The PM faced calls on Monday from senior Labour MP Stella Creasy to reverse the cruel austerity-era policy as she said tackling poverty is in Labour’s “DNA”.
Ms Creasy said removing the two-child benefit limit, which restricts parents from claiming Universal Credit or Child Tax Credits for any children beyond their first two, would lift around 350,00 children out of poverty “overnight”.
She said struggling families needed a “triple lock”, a policy which sees state pension rates go up each year by the rate of inflation, average earnings or 2.5% – whichever is highest.
The Walthamstow MP told BBC : “My focus is poverty, because I think it is in our DNA as the Labour movement to try to end that because of the benefits to everybody when we do. I’m really focused on what we can actually do to help those families.
“I think we need a triple lock for families too. It’s worth remembering we’ve spent 1% of our social security budget on children, we spent 60% of it on pensioners. That is not to distract from the fact that there are pensioners who are living in poverty, and we absolutely need to tackle that. The point is, when we invest in those families, I think it pays off.”
The government is looking at the two-child benefit limit as part of a child poverty strategy. A task force had been due to report in the coming month but was delayed last week until the autumn to align with the Budget.
READ MORE: Join our Mirror politics WhatsApp group to get the latest updates from Westminster