Keir Starmer has promised not to raise National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT if, as seems likely from the polls, he becomes the UK’s next Prime Minister.
Corporation tax would also stay at 25%, he said.
Laying out Labour’s manifesto for the forthcoming election, Starmer also reiterated that it would be non-doms and oil and gas companies that would be paying for most of his pledges.
In total, some £8.6 million would be raised through VAT on private school fees, closing tax avoidance loopholes and North Sea taxes.
On energy, Starmer confirmed Labour would establish “Great British Energy, a publicly-owned clean power company to be funded by a windfall tax on “oil and gas giants".
Other promises also reflected policies largely flagged including a new Border Security Command with special investigators and counter-terror powers to tackle criminal boat gangs.
Starmer also promised 40,000 more appointments each week, during evenings and weekends to cut NHS waiting times and paid for paid for by “cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes."
More controversially, Starmer promised to reduce the voting age to 16 years, something that some political analysts have suggested would guarantee Labour a majority in future.
Hereditary peers will also have their right to sit in the House of Lords removed with an 80-year mandatory retirement age brought in.
Other child-focused policies included breakfast clubs for every primary school and 6,500 new teachers to be paid for by the introduction of VAT on private schools.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak immediately turned the to lack of detail on the cost for all of the policies, adding that with those already announced it would resuli in the highest taxes in UK history, though that is a record he currently holds.
“if you think they’ll win, start saving” he posted in a comment on X.