RACHEL Reeves will hit families with a stealth tax bombshell to pay for Labour’s failure to bring down the welfare bill, the Tories warn.
The Chancellor stands accused by Kemi Badenoch of an income tax raid to pay benefits to the jobless.
The Conservative leader insists working people are paying the price for U-turns on the two-child benefit cap and £5billion of welfare savings this summer.
The intervention comes just days after a manifesto-busting rise in income tax was abandoned but tax thresholds are set to freeze to raise revenue.
In a speech today, Ms Badenoch will say: “They’re hiking taxes on people in work, to give handouts to people on benefits, the last group who might still vote Labour.
“It’s not fair, it’s not right, and we will oppose them.”
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She will say it follows the employers’ National Insurance rise last year that she claims has led to higher prices, lower wages and fewer jobs.
It is now thought likely that a freeze on income tax thresholds will be extended for two years, until 2030.
The Tory leader will point out that Ms Reeves used last year’s Budget to say a further freeze would hurt working people and take “money out of their payslips”.
Ms Badenoch will also confirm the Tories will bring back the two-child benefit cap.
A Labour spokesperson said: “It’s astonishing that the Tories have the bare-faced cheek to lecture anyone.
“After crashing the economy, Badenoch is still to apologise.”
A weak Labour’s to blame
By KEMI BADENOCH, Conservative leader
KEIR Starmer and Rachel Reeves are gearing up for another tax raid at the Budget next week.
They broke their promise not to hike taxes on working people last year with the Jobs Tax.
Now it looks like they’re going to freeze, or even lower, income tax thresholds — which means more and more Sun readers will be dragged into paying higher rates of tax.
Reeves knows this is a tax raid. She has said freezing thresholds would “hurt working people”.
Even worse is why Labour are doing this.
Starmer and Reeves will try and blame everyone else — the OBR, Brexit, Trump.
But the simple reason is their own weakness.
They tried to save £5billion from the bloated welfare bill.
But leftie MPs wouldn’t let them, so savings got shelved.
Under pressure from those same Labour MPs, Starmer is now lifting the two-child benefit cap, which ensures that people on benefits have to make the same decisions about having children as everyone else.
Labour’s tax rises aren’t the fault of anyone else.
They are a result of Starmer and Reeves lacking the backbone for spending cuts.
No one voted for out-of-control spending and higher taxes.
But there is another way.
The Conservatives will cut spending, cut taxes, back business and get Britain working again.