Thank you to all those who have contacted me about the income tax personal allowance for pensioners.

I appreciate the concerns you raise. The tax burden is at its highest in 70 years, with households set to be worse off thanks to the Government’s freezing of tax thresholds. These freezes represent one of the biggest stealth taxes in modern British history, raising over £41 billion by 2028-29 and dragging nearly four million more people into paying income tax. And for pensioners, as the Resolution Foundation has shown, the freezes mean that taxpaying pensioners will be around £1,000 worse off on average, while many will be dragged into paying tax out of their fixed income for the first time.

Furthermore, the Government has set out an ambition of abolishing National Insurance contributions (NICs), without setting out how it would pay for this. I am concerned that this would either leave a £46 billion black hole in resources for funding state pensions and the NHS, or, if the Government plan is to merge income tax and NICs, see pensioners facing a tax increase that would wipe out the gains from the triple lock over the last 14 years.

I believe the high tax burden faced by households is a result of the Government’s failures on the economy since 2010. These include the austerity that cut the vital investment needed for growth, the extreme mismanagement of the economy we saw in the autumn of 2022 and a long-term failure to deliver economic growth, which have all combined to deliver the biggest fall in living standards in a generation. On pensioners specifically, I believe it is worrying that over two million, nearly one in five, are now living in poverty.

I therefore believe we need an ambitious plan for growth that will deliver for all parts of the country and raise living standards. This involves putting economic stability first, reforming planning laws to get Britain building again, backing British business with a new industrial strategy and kickstarting a skills revolution. And it involves making work pay by introducing a new deal for working people. I believe that this plan will help deliver the more resilient economy we need so we can guarantee security for pensioners.

Thank you once again to all those who have contacted me.