Keir Starmer called her out for using what she claimed was the OBR’s figure in PMQs
Kemi Badenoch fumbled again during PMQs today, claiming that families will be, on average, £3,500 poorer due to the government’s decision to increase employers’ National Insurance Contributions from 6 April.
The Tories are claiming that this figure comes from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the public body which provides economic forecasts.
Keir Starmer swiftly rejected this claim, stating: “Her fantasy figure is about as much use as Liz Truss’s economic planning, and she turns up every week to carp from the sidelines about decisions we made at the budget.”
He added: “Yesterday, she held a press conference and she couldn’t say whether she would reverse the decisions that we made at the budget.”
On Sky News this morning, shadow housing secretary Kevin Hollinrake was pressed on the figure by presenter Wilfred Frost.
Frost said: “How do you get to the number £3,500?”.
Hollinrake replied: “It’s from the OBR. Those are the numbers coming from the OBR in terms of the pass on of the costs of the job tax both in terms of lower wages and higher prices.”
Frost said that the number put out by the Tories yesterday is not an official figure from the OBR. He said: “It’s a Conservative Party extrapolation based on [OBR] forecasts for 2027 with all sorts of probabilities assigned to it”.
The OBR expects companies to pass most, but not all, of their higher employer NIC costs onto employees, mainly through lower wages. They have forecast that 60% of the cost will be passed on in 2025/26 and 76% from 2026/27 onwards.
During PMQs, Badenoch continued to claim people are poorer under Labour.
She said: “Out there, they are calling it ‘awful April’. That’s because of decisions he made, because he made promises and broke them. His promises are worthless, people are getting poorer.”
Badenoch also criticised the Prime Minister for not freezing council tax. In 2023, Starmer pledged that if Labour were in government they would freeze council tax for a year, but did not indicate he would freeze it in 2025/26.
Starmer replied: “I have to ask, if she doesn’t want people to be poorer, why didn’t she resign when she was in government?
“The last government put up council tax for 12 years in a row. She, I think, was actually minister for council tax, and in the years she was, she put it up.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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