Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury has said the party will focus on raising taxes on wealth and insisted that a Labour government would reduce migration to the UK.

Darren Jones also played down the Labour party’s threat from Reform and said they would ‘respect’ the Brexit vote.

Speaking to GB News Darren Jones said:

“We’ve been very clear. There’s a triple lock promise. We will not increase income tax, national insurance or VAT if we are elected on July 4th for the course of the next parliament.

“And everything in our manifesto is fully funded and fully costed.

“We’re very clear: we do not need to raise taxes. Our funding, our policies, are fully funded and fully costed in our manifesto, and we know that people at home, because of the increases in tax under the Conservatives over the past few years, are worried about those big taxes that we all pay, and that’s why there’s a promise from Labour not to increase income tax, national insurance or VAT.

“We’ve taken action to close loopholes on wealth. That’s why the non dom tax status is changing under a future Labour government, if we’re elected, and why we’re charging income tax on the profits made by private equity bonuses, as opposed to them being taxed in capital terms.

“So we’re taking action on asset based wealth and the wealthy, but people at home are generally not in those circumstances. They worry about income tax, National Insurance and VAT and guess what? Labour will not increase any of them if we win the election on July 4th.

“Net migration has become too high, and the reason it’s become too high is because there’s not adequate training and skills across the economy for people that want to get on and do different types of work.

“And that’s why we’ve said in the Labour Party that we’re going to make sure that employers who rely too much on overseas labour are required to put in skills and training plan for workers here in the UK. so those jobs are available for UK workers.

“There are lots of migrants that come to work here in our social care system, for example, and we value and welcome their contribution. But the fact is, we become too reliant on overseas labour, and that’s why we’ve got to get these training and skills plans into the UK so that UK workers get the chance for new jobs and new salaries across the economy.

“We’re not going to set an arbitrary number [on net migration] because these things fluctuate all the time. But we know from the Tories that they failed repeatedly in doing that.

“But we’re very clear that the net migration numbers need to come down in the way that I’ve just explained.

“There’s a commitment in our manifesto. It’s a plan for change and it’s not just a headline policy commitment. It’s packaged with a load of support there, on skills, on training, on support for the social care system, on the new deal for working people. That means that for UK workers here in the UK they’ll get protection at work and the opportunities they deserve.

“The UK has made the decision on Brexit. We respect the outcome of the referendum. Look, we can make improvements to the relationship with Europe, because the trade deal that Boris Johnson signed up to left lots of inadequacies in the system, and some of that’s now being experienced, and we can improve that trading relationship. But we’ll do that as a friend and an ally as a third country, not by rejoining the European Union.

“There’s only two people who are going to become Prime Minister on July 4th, that will either be Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak.