UK’s Reeves raises taxes by most since 1993 in first Labour budget | U.S. & World [Video]

By David Milliken and Sachin Ravikumar

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s new finance minister Rachel Reeves announced the biggest tax increases in three decades in her first budget on Wednesday, accusing the former Conservative government of breaking the country’s public services.

Businesses and the wealthy were set to bear the brunt of the tax hikes and Reeves also paved the way for higher borrowing for investment to speed up Britain’s economy, which has been slowed by the 2007-09 global financial crisis, Brexit, COVID and soaring energy prices.

The former Bank of England economist – who said she was proud to be the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer – stressed there would be no repeat of how former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss sent the bond market into a tailspin in 2022 with her unfunded tax cut plans.

Initial reaction to her speech suggested investors were unfazed by the Labour Party’s first economic programme.

But government prices …