Labour admits it has no proper definition for ‘working people’ despite promising they would be protected from tax hikes_Nhy
Ministers have finally admitted that the Government does not have a definition of ‘working people’ despite repeatedly insisting they would be protected from tax hikes.
A month after being asked by the Tories how it decides who qualifies as a working person and whether or not pensioners are included in the category, the Cabinet Office has failed to offer a proper explanation.
Instead a junior minister simply replied that it is up to each Whitehall department to assess policies against Government priorities.
Last night Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith told the Mail: ‘Time and time again at the election, Labour promised not to raise taxes on working people. Now it turns out they can’t or won’t even define what a working person is.
‘As with her CV, Rachel Reeves continually tries to pull the wool over the public’s eyes. Britain deserves a Chancellor who attends to the detail and does their homework properly before making decisions that betray working people and damage jobs and growth.’
Tory MP John Glen had originally tabled a Parliamentary written question on the definition on October 14th after Labour’s election manifesto promised that the party ‘will not increase taxes on working people’.
He asked ‘what methodology the Government uses to assess whether someone is a working person for the purposes of policy development; and whether pensioners are included in that demographic’.
But he only received a reply a month later on November 15th, weeks after the Budget which promised it was ‘protecting working people’ despite a £40billion tax raid.
Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith told the Mail Labour ‘can’t or won’t define what a working person is’
‘As with her CV, Rachel Reeves continually tries to pull the wool over the public’s eyes,’ says Andrew Griffith
Tory MP John Glen (pictured) originally tabled a Parliamentary written question on the definition on October 14th after Labour’s election manifesto
Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould replied: ‘Each government department is responsible for assessing potential policies to ensure they deliver the Government’s objectives.’
In the intervening weeks, ministers had offered a wide variety of definitions of the crucial term amid suspicion it would leave the wealthy at risk of tax rises.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said those ‘who are on lower or middle income’ are who he thinks of as working people, but later clarified that he included himself as ‘last time I checked I was working very hard’.
Treasury minister James Murray had simply said ‘working people are people who go out to work for their income’ but refused to say if that would include landlords.
Culture minister Chris Bryant said the phrase was shorthand for ‘the people who were particularly disadvantaged in the cost of living crisis’ while Deputy PM Angela Rayner was even more blunt, telling the Commons: ‘The definition of ‘working people’ is the people who the Tory party have failed for the past 14 years.’
Sir Keir Starmer said a working person was someone who ‘goes out and earns their living, usually paid in a sort of monthly cheque’ and asked if that would include people who get income from assets such as shares or property replied ‘they wouldn’t come within my definition’.
He later claimed that ‘the working people of this country know exactly who they are’ and described them as ‘the golden thread that runs through our agenda’.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that the PM did count as a working person as he ‘gets his income from going out to work and working for our country’ and added: ‘People who go out and make their money through work are, by definition, working people.’
