Party loyalty would force Conservatives to vote against plan for fiscal responsibility
Read more: ‘I challenge Rishi Sunak: vote with Labour to stop a Truss-style disaster happening again,’ writes Rachel Reeves
Labour will force a Commons vote this week aimed at creating new legal safeguards against fiscal disasters such as Liz Truss’s catastrophic mini-budget, which sent the financial markets into meltdown and drove up mortgage rates.
The party’s plan for a “fiscal lock” to protect personal, family and the national finances from reckless politicians will be contained in an amendment to the king’s speech that will be voted on by MPs on Tuesday. The manoeuvre will present Conservative backbenchers with a dilemma over whether to back a Labour amendment, or vote against what is a plan designed to embed fiscal responsibility into the budgetary process, and protect it from wild or accidental political misjudgments.
The vote will take place on the same day as a “growth commission” set up by the former prime minister Truss will publish an alternative budget, which it says will contain a raft of “exciting” economic policies to cut taxes and deregulate the economy, challenging conventional economic thinking.
Under the Labour plan spelled out in its amendment, legislation would be introduced to ensure that the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) could publish its own report on the likely dangers or benefits of any substantial tax and spending plans to be introduced...
A federal judge on Monday largely blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out civil immigration arrests at several Manhattan immigration courthouses, after government lawyer...