Starmer won't rule out council tax increases

AS MINISTER ADMITS LABOUR COULD BE IN POWER FOR 20 YEARS

- Rachael Burford

SIR Keir Starmer today refused to directly rule out council tax rises under a Labour government as he faced a grilling from voters on his economic plans.

The Labour leader said he had no plans to put more financial pressure on working people and vowed that income tax, national insurance and VAT would not increase if he becomes Prime Minister next month. But pressed about council taxes, he declined to promise the same.

During an LBC phone-in he said: "We've been really clear we're not going to be raising tax on working people... What I'm not going to do is sit here two weeks before the election and write the budgets for the next five years.

"What I can say is that none of our plans require a tax rise. And that is for a reason and the reason is our focus is on getting our economy going, on building, on growing, on raising living standards and creating wealth."