Jenrick cites Truss to defend tax-cut timing
Reform UK announced an £80bn public-spending reduction at its Birmingham conference, with the bulk of the package coming from a previously announced £50bn cut to welfare.
The breakdown of the remainder is £10bn from net zero programmes, £8bn from civil service reductions and £7.1bn from capping the foreign aid budget. The party says further savings would flow from its immigration plans, including abolishing indefinite leave to remain.
Speaking at a fringe event with journalist Allister Heath ahead of his scheduled address to the conference, Jenrick said he would like to cut taxes in Reform’s first budget if the party won the next general election — but only after establishing credibility with investors.
“We’ve got to be the party of fiscal responsibility,” Jenrick said. He pledged to make “big changes… in a careful way, not a cack-handed way” and said it was important to “learn the lessons” of Liz Truss.
Jenrick served as a health minister in 2022, when Truss’s plan to deliver large energy bill subsidies and £45bn of tax cuts shook market confidence in the UK’s financial credibility. He pointed to that episode as a cautionary example, quoting from his conference remarks:
“Basically went into a sweetie shop, took everything off the shelves and stuck it into a budget. Quite rightly the markets reacted very negatively to that.”
Jenrick was referring to Truss, the prime minister at the time.
He has written to investors who hold UK government debt to arrange meetings in London and New York to discuss the fiscal rules he would set, with the goal of reducing the cost of borrowing. UK borrowing costs have risen to a 28-year high in recent days, part of a broader global increase in long-term rates.
Reform first laid out its £50bn welfare plan in mid-August. Jenrick played down the party’s previously stated ambition to cut inheritance tax, arguing it affected a relatively small share of households. “It’s a bold chancellor that would say I’d rather privilege 36,000 families than 40 million [income] taxpayers,” he said.
The party would retain the triple lock on state pensions — the mechanism that guarantees annual increases of 2.5%, inflation, or average earnings growth, whichever is highest. The triple lock is currently estimated to cost about £15.5bn a year by 2030.
Jenrick rejected the idea of reducing pensions as a route to fiscal consolidation. He said he could not “look pensioners in the eye” and reduce their income “while there is so much waste in the public sector,” and called it “fundamentally unfair going to pensions before we have made hard choices elsewhere.”
Labour responded by describing the proposed cuts as “incredibly reckless” and warning that they could put “vital public services like hospitals, schools and law enforcement” at risk.
Business spokesman Richard Tice, also speaking at the conference, set out a package of measures to boost housebuilding on brownfield land — sites previously developed. Under his proposals, stamp duty, capital gains tax, and tax on rental income would be removed for a decade for new homes built on brownfield sites, and affordable housing requirements would be dropped for brownfield developments outside major cities.
Reform’s policy document concedes the package would reduce tax receipts but argues the additional homes would boost the broader economy. Tice separately proposed cutting business rates for high street retailers while offsetting the cost by raising them for online competitors.
The Birmingham NEC conference follows a series of recent developments for the party. Leader Nigel Farage resigned and then re-ran in his Clacton constituency over questions about a £5m gift he received before becoming an MP. Police are also investigating donations made to the party.
The main conference business is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, with addresses from Farage and other senior figures, plus a speech from Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s National Rally party.