FORMER Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has accused Rachel Reeves of misleading voters over tax rises and said the Budget will be “very tough” on ordinary families.

He said on GB News: “Rachel Reeves promised us 30 times this year before the election that she wouldn’t increase taxes outside what was in the Labour manifesto. She even said she wanted to bring down taxes.

“Many people this morning are waking up feeling utterly betrayed that we’ve had the biggest tax raising Budget in history.

“And you know what is so interesting? Labour always says, ‘well, we’re going to protect working people. It won’t harm ordinary families’.

“But actually, what their independent watchdog says is that living standards will go down, wages will go down, inflation will go up, mortgages will go up. This is a very, very tough budget for ordinary families.”

He added: “Government is about making difficult choices. Rachel Reeves, I’m afraid, took the easy choice today, which is to raise taxes. That’s her right. All I’d say is that it’s totally legitimate. I may disagree with it, but a totally legitimate choice to make.

“But she should have told us before the election, instead of saying as she said. She didn’t just say that she wouldn’t increase tax, she actually said she wanted to bring down tax.

“Let me just give you one example. We said that taxes would go up by £2,000 over the next four years, under Labour they’re actually going to go up by nearly £8,000.

“Now, when we said that in the election campaign, Keir Starmer said Rishi Sunak was lying, he actually said he was deliberately lying. Now we have a tax rise four times higher than what we thought was coming down the tracks. That is something that I think it’s going to upset a lot of people.”

Asked if he could have delivered a better Budget, he said: “All I wish now in hindsight is that we’ve had a more honest debate in the election, because this is the budget that Rachel Reeves wanted to deliver all along.

“It’s the biggest tax-raising budget in British history. It’s going to have a devastating impact on ordinary families.

“And if she’d wanted to do that, I just wish she’d told us, and we could have had a proper, grown-up debate about whether returning to traditional Labour tax and spend is the right thing for the British economy.”