Scrapping the 45% rate is the “wrong choice” during a cost-of living crisis, the Labour leader says.
Image source, PA MediaLabour would reverse the government’s cut to the top rate of income tax, leader Sir Keir Starmer has said.
He told the BBC the move was “the wrong choice” during a cost-of-living crisis.
But Sir Keir said he supported the decision to cut the basic rate of tax from 20% to 19% as this would “reduce the tax burden on working people”.
On Friday Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled plans to scrap the higher 45% rate as he set out the biggest package of tax cuts in 50 years.
Sir Keir told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I do not think that the choice to have tax cuts for those that are earning hundreds of thousands of pounds is the right choice when our economy is struggling the way it is, working people are struggling in the way they are… that is the wrong choice.”
However, on the cut to the basic rate of income tax, he said: “I’ve long made the argument that we should reduce the tax burden on working people.
“That’s why we opposed the national insurance increase earlier this year, which of course the government is now reversing.”
Sir Keir also said there was now “a belief” that his party would win the next election, with signs some former Labour voters who backed the Conservatives in 2019 were returning.
“Something has happened in the Labour Party this year, which is the hope of a Labour government has turned into a belief in a Labour government,” he said.
At the start of its party conference in Liverpool, Labour has unveiled plans on green energy and boosting police numbers.
The party said it wanted to make the UK the first major economy in the world to generate all of its electricity without using fossil fuels.
Sir Keir said achieving zero carbon energy by 2030 would be a key priority if his party wins the next election, adding that it was an “difficult” goal but “absolutely doable”.
The government has already committed to zero carbon electricity by 2035 but Labour believes it can win votes by promoting green energy as a way to generate economic growth, in contrast to Tory tax cuts for the well-off.