THERE should be an investigation into the “dishonesty” showed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves during the Budget process, according to Conservative spokesman Alex Burghart.

The Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told GB News: “Look, it’s clear that the Chancellor has been caught telling porky pies and very, very serious ones at that. It seems now very clear that in the run up to the Budget, Rachel Reeves told the country that there was a big hole in the public finances, and she was going to have to put up taxes in order to fill it.

“But It now turns out that the advice she was given by the independent Office of Budget Responsibility was completely different to that the reason she’s actually put up taxes is order to increase welfare spending and that so everybody watching your show, Eamonn, is going to have less money in their pocket in order to pay for welfare rises to keep Labour backbenchers happy.

“That’s what’s going on here, and we need the Chancellor to be investigated for the dishonesty that she showed in this process.”

Asked what questions she needed to answer, he said: “Well, why didn’t you tell the truth? You know, why was it you were telling people in the run up to the Budget that you had this big hole in the public finances that you were going to have to break your manifesto promises in order to fill when it wasn’t true.

“And why have you put up benefit spending when you said that previously it was going to be too expensive to do? This is just wrong. This is the wrong way of going around a Budget. It’s the wrong way of running the public finances, and we need her to be held to account.

“That’s why I’ve written to the Prime Minister, wrote to the Prime Minister yesterday, telling him to send Rachel Reeves to the House of Commons today to answer questions. It’s why Mel Stride, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, has written to the FCA, because it’s manipulating the markets in this way.

“Releasing false information is potentially a very serious offence. You’ll have seen on Twitter, there are some very senior people in the city who are saying that if this had been a private company, a private company had released false information in an attempt to change how the market’s reacting, they’d be fired and they might be facing criminal prosecution. So look, this is really, really serious stuff.”

He added: “It’s more manipulation and dishonesty from a government that just can’t be trusted. It’s a government that has lied over and over again, and now it’s been dishonest with the public finances in a way that I think is just inexcusable.

“You know that they promised that they wouldn’t put up in their manifesto, they said they wouldn’t put up taxes on working people. They then brought in the biggest taxes on employment that we’ve seen in 50 years, since the Labour government in the 1970s. And last year at the Budget, Rachel Reeves, after the budget, she said, I’m not coming back for more. That it’s a one off, and she’s broken those promises again.

“And now we found that she lied about the outlook during the run up to this Budget. It’s just wrong, it’s wrong, and someone has got to take responsibility for it. Just over and over again with this Labour government, no one will take responsibility, and that’s why the Conservatives are asking Rachel Reeves to come to the Commons today to face questions.

“We call on the Prime Minister to sack her, and it’s why we’re asking the FCA to investigate what they’ve done.”