Kemi Badenoch today vowed to reinstate the two-child benefit cap if Rachel Reeves goes ahead with scrapping it in the Budget.
The Tory leader insisted Britain ‘cannot afford’ £3billion more in handouts for bigger families.
In a tough press conference a week before the Chancellor is due to deliver her crucial fiscal package, Mrs Badenoch cautioned that curbing the benefits bill is the only way to stop the country going effectively bankrupt.
‘On the question of unwinding changes Labour makes to the two-child benefit, I think we are putting people on notice – we cannot afford this,’ Mrs Badenoch said.
‘If we keep allowing Labour to change the benchmark for where we are, we’re never going to solve these problems. We need to start living within our means, that is something I will stand by.
‘Many of the problems we have now are because we did not unwind the mistakes from Labour in 2010. That’s a promise I am making now.’
The Tory leader launched the pre-emptive strike on the Budget at the same time as Nigel Farage was making his own pitch nearby in Westminster.
Reform is calling for spending to be slashed on foreigners to avoid heaping pain on Britons.
Ms Reeves is scrambling for ways of raising tens of billions of pounds at the Budget after humiliatingly abandoning plans to hike income tax.
She is thought to be looking at a ‘Smorgasbord’ of increases instead, hammering the ‘wealthy’, pensioners and savers.
But despite the looming raid there have been heavy hints that the two-child benefit cap will be axed.
The restriction, brought in by the Tories, has long been opposed by Labour MPs and unions, who say it fuels child poverty.
Scrapping it altogether would cost around £3billion a year.
In one of the biggest-ticket revenue-raisers, Ms Reeves is poised to keep the long-running freeze on thresholds in place for another two years.
The policy would net the Treasury more than £8billion a year.
But the boost to the government’s coffers would come at a huge cost for Britons, with more than 10 million people facing paying the top rate of tax by the end of the decade. Some couples’ tax bill will be £1,300 higher than if the policy finished as previously scheduled.
The worse-off will also be hammered, with a full-time worker earning the minimum wage seeing their annual tax bill rise £137 relative to the current policy of increasing thresholds in line with inflation.
For the first time, all pensioners will be hit with tax on the full state pension in 2027-28 – so the state is effectively giving with one hand and taking with the other.
In a direct barb at her Reform rival, Mrs Badenoch said: ‘Right now, Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf are holding a press conference on how they would save money, but in reality they want to increase benefits by scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
‘They just don’t get it.’
She accused Mr Farage of deceiving voters with his suggestion of stripping welfare payments from European Union (EU) citizens who have settled status in post-Brexit Britain.
She said: ‘It would be a bad idea because we spent a lot of time negotiating those rights, not just for EU citizens in this country, but British citizens in other countries of the EU.
‘You start unpicking that and you start unpicking all of the work that was done, year after year after year, with a lot of pain and effort during those years when we were negotiating Brexit.’
It was ‘completely ridiculous’ for Mr Farage to say he would just renegotiate that settlement.
‘This man does not know what he’s talking about,’ she said. ‘I’m a former trade secretary. Even with friendly countries, trade negotiations are very, very difficult.’
She added: ‘It is wrong of him to deceive people, lie to them and make them think this is going to be easy.’
