Robert Jenrick pledges tax cut amid row over Reform donationsReform said the plan would save the average taxpayer £500 a year and take 2.9 million people out of income tax altogetherRobert Jenrick will seek to move on from the row over Reform’s finances when he gives his speech to the party conference on Saturday. (Stefan Rousseau/PA)PA WireChristopher McKeon2 minutes ago
Robert Jenrick pledged to raise the income tax threshold as Reform UK attempts to move on from allegations about its finances.
The party’s Treasury spokesman told the final day of the Reform conference in Birmingham that he would increase the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000 within the first 100 days of taking office.
The threshold has been set at £12,570 since 2021 and is due to remain there until 2031.
Reform said the plan would save the average taxpayer £500 a year and take 2.9 million people out of income tax altogether, at a cost of £17.7 billion in its first year, rising to £21 billion five years later.
The party has previously said it wants to increase the personal allowance to £20,000, with Mr Jenrick saying he would approach the figure “step-by-step” when it is affordable.
Mr Jenrick said the move was “a tax cut for 40 million people, the biggest rise in the personal allowance in its history, and delivered not in 10 years but in my very first budget”.
He added: “If I don’t deliver this exactly when I have said that I will, I will resign. No ifs, not buts, I will be gone.”
But the annual conference has been overshadowed again by the row over a report by Channel 4 News that appeared to show senior Reform figures discussing how to disguise donations from foreign sources.
Party leader Nigel Farage, who is expected to close the conference on Saturday afternoon, was already facing intense scrutiny about donations Reform has received, as well as £5 million he was given by a wealthy backer.
Party leader Nigel Farage is expected to close the conference on Saturday afternoon (PA)PA Wire
The footage was part of an investigation by undercover group Verbatim, who posed as an American donor and his son who had paid for polling allegedly commissioned by Reform and were seeking to channel money to Reform.
Accepting donations from a foreign company, including donations in kind such as polling, could constitute a criminal offence, and the party has been reported to the police.
The Liberal Democrats have also asked Parliament’s standards watchdog to investigate the claims.
Dan Jukes, a long-serving Farage aide, and James Orr, the party’s head of policy, have stood down pending an internal investigation of their appearance in the footage.
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Mr Jukes denies any wrongdoing.
On Friday, Reform deputy leader Richard Tice would not say whether the pair could return, telling the BBC it would depend on the outcome of an internal investigation.
But on Saturday, Mr Jenrick told Times Radio they had been “permanently suspended from their roles”.
Over the course of Friday, Mr Farage repeatedly denied that the party had broken any rules.
Describing his long-term aide and the party’s head of policy as “contractors”, he also dismissed Mr Jukes’s apparent suggestion the party had already disguised the source of foreign donations as “loose pub talk” that included “a couple of boasts that simply were not true”.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Robert Jenrick only seems to be interested in making people better off when Reform UK are trying to distract from the latest scandal engulfing their party. The public will see right through it.
“Farage and Reform are funding policy after policy through mystery spending cuts, which could put local schools, hospitals and other vital public services at risk.”
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