A former Conservative Treasury minister has said it is “absolute rubbish” for Labour to claim that it has made the economy resilient in response to an IMF report saying that the UK tax burden will rise to over 42%.

Angela Knight told GB News: “What I make of it is I’m shocked by this report from the IMF and the calculation.

“Although we have all kind of been feeling it, haven’t we? We’ve been feeling things increasing and the shocks. We’ve been feeling our tax burden increasing. And of course, we all know that growth isn’t working at all.

“I feel a bit sorry for [Business Secretary] Peter Kyle, who has been sent out with a briefing note to face everybody to say, ‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with us. It’s all to do with somebody else and by the way, we put in place resilience in the economy’.

“That is, in fact, absolute rubbish, and I think that it will be recognised as rubbish.

“The reality is that at least part of these tax rises is all about not having gripped what they should have gripped, which is the out of control welfare budget.

“And whilst they jump to put up increases, both directly and indirectly. By indirect, I mean holding the allowance threshold which results in many more people meeting those thresholds and having to pay more tax.

“So while they’re saying it’s somebody else, it’s actually what they’ve done themselves, and they failed to put through the welfare cuts they should have put through.”