REFORM UK’s plan to change the income tax threshold would cost £80 billion, Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook has claimed.

He told GB News: “My main take from the press conference yesterday was that none of it added up, and Nigel Farage doesn’t add up.

“All of those changes taken together that he announced run into the tens of billions of pounds. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, for example, said the proposed changes to the income tax threshold to £20,000 would cost anything up to £80 billion.

“I mean, this is spending that makes Liz Truss look reasonable. I don’t think Farage adds up. I don’t think his party adds up. He’s not a prime minister in waiting. It’s not a serious intervention, from my point of view.

“He’s got a talent for a cheap headline, but Reform are now going to come under far more scrutiny than they’ve ever faced, and there will be scrutiny about their spending plans.

“Just that single policy announcement yesterday, and Mr Farage’s figures, I think, jumped about in the press conference, and he admitted they were less than robust himself, when those come under scrutiny, when costs of that magnitude, up to £80 billion for an income tax threshold change proposed glibly yesterday, I think when the British public see and see that level of detail, when the plans are subject to that scrutiny, I’ve got faith in their good sense and collective wisdom to see through the circus that is Reform.”

Asked if the government was failing on its housing plans, he said: “No, that’s wrong. I’m afraid we’re not failing on our target. We don’t have an annual target of the kind you’ve just specified.

“We very clearly and deliberately chose, going into the election, a 1.5 million homes target over the whole Parliament as part of our plan for change, and that’s because we knew we were going to inherit a dire situation when it came to rates of house building as a result of decisions made by the previous Conservative government, including the abolition of mandatory housing targets.

“So, we are in a trough. Numbers are very low right now. We’re making changes, including overhauling national planning policy, including the changes we’re announcing today…that will feed through, but that will see, quite rightly, very significant increases in house building rates towards the final years of the parliament. Because we need to take ourselves out of this trough and step up those rates.”