Mel Stride

THE NUMBERS NEVER ADD UP WITH REFORM. My words in the @Telegraph 👇🏻 https://t.co/CEOxOQzLki

Spot on from @Helen_Whately 👇

I think @Arron_banks you might need to look up the difference between deficit and debt. Which rather speaks to my point...

We need to back work and get taxes down. But that has to be done responsibly, and the numbers need to add up. That’s the approach @Conservatives are taking. How can Reform claim to be a serious pa...

They costed the policy at £14bn - almost triple Reform’s estimate. That’s a £9bn black hole in their plan. This is on top of a £10bn hole in the ‘pubs plan’ they announced a few months ago. This i...

Reform claim it would cost £5bn a year - so even on their own terms this is a hugely expensive policy, which 9 in 10 workers wouldn’t benefit from, including the self-employed. But analysis by Tax...

Overall the policy would introduce huge complexity into the tax system and would be very easy to game. Reform’s only answer to all this is ‘we’d have anti-avoidance measures’ - as if it’s that simp...

And as economist @julianHjessop has pointed out, it would also make it more tax efficient for employers to stretch the same amount of work across fewer workers - meaning it could also end up COSTIN...

For salaried jobs, there’d be a huge incentive to switch to hourly pay. Again, no extra work done - just people rearranging things for tax reasons. When France tried this policy, a study found ba...

Imagine you’re an employer. You could just agree with your workers to have lower regular pay and higher overtime pay, and split the tax benefit between you. No extra hours worked - but potentiall...

Reform have said they’d make overtime tax-free, defined as any hours worked above 40 hours in a week. They say they want to reward hard work - that’s a laudable aim. But this is a terrible way to ...

REFORM - IT NEVER ADDS UP. Reform’s latest gimmick has been ripped apart by tax experts and economists. Reform claim that ‘tax-free overtime’ would cost £5bn. It’s actually been costed at almost ...

Message to the Chancellor: If you tax jobs and make it more expensive to employ people, employment suffers. https://t.co/5T5pUWgv14

The @Conservatives are the only ones that get it. It’s time to get serious. Our Golden Economic Rule explained 👇🏻 https://t.co/FTTFVod1TL

Great to be at the @DevonCountyShow meeting farmers, businesses & rural organisations. Important discussions about food security, support for farming & the pressures facing rural businesse...

This government’s easing of oil sanctions on Russia is supporting Putin’s ability to wage war on Ukraine. Disgraceful. https://t.co/VhW0rVQfcB

Labour borrowed £24.3 billion last month - well above the OBR forecast and 25% higher than last April. Our debt interest spending was the highest of any April on record. The recent spike in borro...

Rachel Reeves has left us in a terrible position to deal with the latest energy crisis. Today’s announcements will do nothing to undo the damage she has done to our economy. This dying Labour gove...

The @Conservatives are the only party serious about getting debt down. Our Golden Rule explained 👇🏻 https://t.co/Dbyr1ogfSX

Andy Burnham. More King Canute than King of the North. You can’t ignore the Bond markets. https://t.co/S8M12HoYL7