Treasury won’t cut threshold for higher rate income tax, say sources – UK politics live

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves on a visit to a Welsh factory on Thursday Photograph: Temilade Adelaja/AFP/Getty Images

5.00pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Rachel Reeves will put a £7.5bn tax rise at the heart of her budget after scrapping a separate plan to increase income tax rates just days before the announcement.

• The BBC’s charter review will examine political appointments to the broadcaster’s board, Lisa Nandy has said, as they have “damaged confidence and trust”. She was speaking before President Trump responded to the apology he has received from the BBC over the way his 6 January 2021 speech was edited. The BBC has rejected his call for compensation. This morning Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, posted this on social media, implying Trump is not minded to forgive and forget.

BBC Newsnight also doctored Trump speechhttps://t.co/o33uJ6NBj1

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) November 14, 2025

• The leftwing Your Party spearheaded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana has had a major split after another independent MP involved, Adnan Hussain, quit because of “persistent infighting and a struggle for power” in the organisation.

• Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, is due to announce sweeping changes next week aimed at making the UK less attractive for migrants and modelled on the Danish system.

• A former councillor has been convicted of stalking the former Conservative MP and leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt.

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

Updated at 5.01pm GMT

4.50pm GMT

How Reeves suggested to MPs last year a further freeze in tax thresholds would breach Labour's manifesto pledge

If the tax threshold freeze is now one of the key features of the budget, this creates a new problem for Rachel Reeves. As the Conservative MP Neil O’Brien points out, in her budget speech last year Reeves said this was a measure that would hurt working people. Reeves told MPs:

The previous government froze income tax and national insurance thresholds in 2021, and then did so again after the mini-budget. Extending their threshold freeze for a further two years raises billions of pounds – money to deal with the black hole in our public finances and repair our public services.

Having considered the issue closely, I have come to the conclusion that extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people. It would take more money out of their payslips.

I am keeping every single promise on tax that I made in our manifesto, so there will be no extension of the freeze in income tax and national insurance thresholds beyond the decisions made by the previous government.

From 2028-29, personal tax thresholds will be uprated in line with inflation once again.

When it comes to choices on tax, this government choose to protect working people every single time.

This passage is particularly significant because in it Reeves seems to be accepting that extending the income tax threshold freeze would be at least an implicit breach of the Labour manifesto promise (see 8.57am for the wording) – and arguably an explicit one, if “Labour will not increase taxes on working people” is seen as the operative part of the pledge.

Updated at 1.40pm GMT