'Of course I didn't' lie about state of public finances, Reeves insists to Sky News

The chancellor has insisted to Sky News that she did not prevarication to the nationalist astir the authorities of the nationalist finances up of the budget.

Rachel Reeves is facing wide accusations that successful a code from Downing Street connected 4 November successful which she laid the groundwork for taxation rises, she misled the state and led the nationalist to judge the fiscal concern was worse than it really was.

Asked straight by Sky's Trevor Phillips if she lied, she said: "Of people I didn't."

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Ms Reeves said the determination by the autarkic Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to reappraisal and downgrade productivity meant that the forecast for taxation receipts was £16bn little than expected, and said she needed taxation rises to make much fiscal headroom (the magnitude by which authorities tin summation spending oregon chopped taxes without breaking its ain fiscal rules) to reassure the fiscal markets and make stableness successful the economy.

But the OBR has said it told the chancellor successful its forecast connected 31 October that determination was a £4.2bn fund surplus, alternatively than a achromatic spread pursuing the productivity downgrade, and Trevor challenged her connected wherefore she did not accidental that to the federation and reason that much headroom was needed.

She replied: "I said successful that code that I wanted to execute 3 things successful the fund - tackling the outgo of living, which is wherefore I took £150 disconnected of vigor bills and froze medicine charges and obstruction fares.

"I wanted to proceed to chopped NHS waiting lists, which is wherefore I protected NHS spending. And I wanted to bring the indebtedness and the borrowing down, which is 1 of the reasons wherefore I accrued the headroom.

"£4bn of headroom would not person been enough, and it would not springiness the Bank of England abstraction to proceed to chopped involvement rates."

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