Farage Reform plan lets workers keep overtime cash

Reform UK has put sixty-four costed growth measures on the table and dared Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government to use them, so workers on overtime keep more of their own money and firms stop drowning in costs. Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick set out the Economic Rescue Plan as a ready alternative Budget, telling the country Britain is broke but not beaten and that growth, not hope, is the only way out.

That is the point of this package: ordinary people who put in extra hours, and the small firms that actually create jobs, get relief first, while a bigger-state Budget habit gets challenged in plain sight. Jenrick said every number had been checked and every measure costed, calling it the most detailed Budget any opposition has put before the country, and he invited Chancellor John Healey to borrow it if he was watching.

A flagship pledge scraps income tax on overtime for people earning under £75,000. Jenrick set out the concrete gain: a worker in the North East doing six extra hours a week would take home £700 more a year. “His money. He earns it. He keeps it under a Reform government,” he declared, framing the change as reward for graft rather than another Whitehall scheme.

Nigel Farage backed the plan as a clear signal of whose side Reform is on. “We very much are a party for working people,” Farage said. “The harder you work, the more you earn, you will not get penalised excessively by the government.” He also highlighted raising the VAT registration threshold to £150,000 so smaller businesses can grow turnover before the paperwork hits, contrasting that with Jeremy Hunt’s earlier lift of what Farage called a derisory £5,000.

Jenrick tied that breathing room to better-paid work. Most of those jobs come from small firms, he argued, so Reform would get out of the way. The plan also bins GDPR and scraps petty rules on where cafés may put tables, the everyday choke points that waste time and cash for owners who just want to trade.

What this means for your pay packet and your bills

Energy costs sit at the centre for factories and the wages they support. Jenrick warned a British factory pays almost twice as much for electricity as a French rival, which is why chemicals have shrunk by a third and steel, ceramics, glass and cars are on their last legs. Reform would approve Rosebank, restart North Sea licensing and scrap the oil and gas windfall tax he said is driving rigs to Norway, and build nuclear the way the French and Koreans do — safe, but fast and cheap.

For households that means a serious attempt to stop industrial decline eating the jobs and tax base that fund public services, instead of loading more pain onto people already working longer for less take-home pay. Rule one in economics, Jenrick said, is that you have to grow your way to prosperity; hope is not a growth strategy. Britain needs Reform, he added, because the country is broke yet still capable of recovery if policy stops punishing effort.

Background matters here. Years of high energy prices, tight thresholds and heavy compliance have left smaller employers hesitant to hire or expand, while overtime taxed like ordinary pay dulls the incentive to cover shifts. Reform’s list is offered as a full alternative at the despatch box on Wednesday, not a slogan. Compared with past tinkering on VAT and windfall taxes that failed to reverse the industrial slide, the test is whether Burnham’s government ignores a costed plan or finally puts growth before process.

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Commentary: Policy “Britain is broke, but Britain isn’t beaten”: Reform UK unveils SIXTY-FOUR pro-growth measures to get Britain moving

Original source: Reform UK

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