Ed Balls pressed cabinet minister Pat McFadden this morning over fears that Labour will be bringing back austerity in Wednesday’s Budget.
The Conservatives first introduced the policy in 2010 with severe cuts to public services, and brought it back in 2021, after the Covid lockdown.
Labour has repeatedly pledged that it has no plans to bring austerity in again with its Budget.
But, it has announced plans to raise £40bn through tax rises and squeezes to departmental spending – leading to plenty of speculation over just how the Treasury intend to do that without austerity.
On Monday, ITV Good Morning Britain’s presenter Balls asked McFadden: “People say you’re going to end austerity. The prime minister says that, you’re going to end austerity.
“Lots of our viewers will say the winter fuel allowance has been taken away, you may be about to uncap bus fares, the chancellor is saying you’re going to have to cut public spending for some departments, tax rises into the tens of billions of pounds.
It looks, to our viewers, like austerity. It looks like what the Tories did.”
The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster replied it was not similarly to the Tories’ time in government, saying a continuation of their policies would have triggered a “decline in investment in future years”, which would stop the UK from funding public services in the NHS.
Balls said: “Why is taking away the winter fuel allowance from pensioners not austerity?”
“This is a decision we didn’t want to take, I’m sure you’ve discussed it many times in the last few months,” McFadden replied. “Austerity would see us with cuts right across the board, we’re not going to be having that, we are going to be improving public services where we can.”
“So if it’s pensioners, it’s not austerity, but if it’s across the board, it is austerity,” Ball said.
The minister denied it was austerity, and instead said the Budget would see the government delivering on promises in the manifesto, improving public services, and “change the investment story” for the country.
Co-presenter Charlotte Hawkins put it to him that voters were “worried” they had backed a party which were now going back on their promises.
But McFadden insisted that was not the case, and Wednesday’s announcement would be “the most honest Budget we’ve had for many years”, and that everything is clearly funded.