Jeremy Hunt defends pension tax giveaway for rich, saying it will lead to people getting NHS operations more quickly – live

Chancellor faces backlash over pensions tax change as Labour pledge to reverse policy announced in budget

The UK remains on track for a “disastrous decade” of stagnant incomes and high taxes, despite cuts to public services, the Resolution Foundation said in its analysis of this morning. Here is the full report from the thinktank. And here is my colleague Phillip Inman’s story.

Good morning. Liz Truss’s mini-budget self-destructed last year for many reasons, but the first element to get unpicked was the abolition of the 45p top rate of tax, a tax cut for the very rich. Labour is attacking Jeremy Hunt’s budget in the same manner, attacking his plan to abolish the pensions lifetime allowance (the limit on how much can be saved tax free) as a tax cut for the very rich.

I think this could unravel as quickly as it began. If you remember last September, Liz Truss tried to cut the top rate of tax from 45p to 40p, everybody kicked off about it.

Next week there will be a vote on this, Labour will force a vote on this next week. And I would say to Conservative MPs in places like Ashfield, or Bolsover, or Stoke-On-Trent, whose side are you on? Are you on the side of ordinary working people in your constituencies who are seeing their taxes go up, or are you going to vote with Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt for a tax cut for the wealthiest in society?

We have a particular problem in the NHS. We have large numbers of doctors who are reducing their hours or retiring early. The Royal College of Surgeons say that 69% of their members have reduced their hours because of the way pension taxes work. We have a big backlog in the NHS and all of us depend on the NHS.

We need to do everything we can. This is a measure that we can deliver quickly. The British Medical Association … say that this will mean that doctors do not leave the NHS because of pension tax rules. I think that’s very important.

We‘re spending £3bn a year in the NHS on locum doctors and agency nurses because of doctor shortfalls. If you ask doctors, they say this is one of the biggest reasons why consultants aren’t available.

If you’re asking what will have an impact on ordinary families up and down the country, it is getting their NHS operation done more quickly. And this is the simplest and quickest way to resolve that issue.