Opposition parties Reform UK and the Conservatives are intensifying pressure on Labour ahead of the Budget with calls for dramatic spending cuts to fix public finances.
In separate press conferences on Tuesday, leaders Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch called for deep cuts to government expenditure to balance the books.
Their renewed attacks on the government came a week before a Budget where Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to hike levies on several different sectors in the UK economy, keeping the tax burden at a post-war high.
During a press conference in Westminster, Farage unveiled a £25bn package of savings and extra taxes on foreign nationals to ease pressures on public finances.
His proposals included ending Universal Credit payments to migrants with settled status, slashing the development aid budget and nearly tripling the NHS surcharge to £2,718 paid by people on different work visas.
Reform claims that it could raise some £15bn from cutting the aid budget and raising the health fees alone.
A commitment to tighten disability payments criteria for people with “non-major anxiety” and a policy to cut benefits for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals have been announced in previous events, with Reform claiming the changes would add up to the £25bn savings package.
The measures would more than fill the £20bn fiscal hole which the Chancellor faces next week at the Budget after it was reported the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) slightly improved its forecasts between negotiation rounds with the Treasury.
Tories’ £47bn Budget plan
Badenoch meanwhile reinforced Tory calls for a £47bn savings package, nearly half of which is made up of cuts to the welfare bill.
The party also called for large cuts to the development aid budget as well as slashing headcounts across the civil service to levels seen nearly 10 years ago.
Its pledges for radical cuts to expenditure came at their party conference in September, with Badenoch adding that half of savings should go towards lowering public debt as a share of GDP.
Traders and voters are largely in the dark over the fiscal measures Reeves is set to take next week, with Speaker of the House Lindsay Hoyle slamming “hokey cokey” briefings issued to newspapers that signal several U-turns on policymaking ahead of the Budget.
Reeves has said curbing inflation and lowering borrowing costs would be central objectives at the upcoming Budget, with debt interest payments to the government’s lenders set to total £110bn this year.
Reeves and other Treasury ministers have not commented on reports at the end of last week suggesting plans to raise income taxes had been abandoned.
Bond traders are on edge ahead of the Budget, with 10-year gilt yields nudging down slightly in the early hours of trading on Tuesday, lowering borrowing costs for the government.