Pat McFadden, the UK’s secretary of state for work and pensions, criticised a perceived government culture of raising taxes purely to underpin benefit payments, in messages with the disgraced former Labour peer Peter Mandelson.
Tax rises in the Labour government include through changes made to inheritance tax, plus planned changes to significantly cap salary sacrifice contributions to retirement pots from 2029 onwards.
The message from McFadden came from a second trove of documents made public following scrutiny over the decision to appoint Mandelson in spite of his previous friendship with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In the messages, McFadden says to Mandelson in a message sent on 24 May last year: “Every meeting I have is “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”. They’re asking the wrong questions.”
Tax rises by the current Labour government also include increasing the employer’s National Insurance rate to 15 per cent, up from 13.8 per cent. Additionally, businesses now start paying these contributions on annual earnings above £5,000, reduced from £9,100.
In the exchanges, McFadden also made reference to a welfare bill which only passed in May of last year after major concessions were made to Labour rebels, namely in reversing cuts to universal credit and protecting current Personal Independence Payment receipts from stricter eligibility criteria. He says: “[then Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney] is meeting the ringleaders today. I think it’s very bad. Defeat, pull bill, gut it all [or] destroy [Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s] authority.”
Also revealed in the Mandelson files, Pensions secretary Torsten Bell described his brief as a gig that was “safe politically”, and an “interesting” area when it came to matters of policy.