Sunak Should Break Vow on Key U.K. Taxes, Ex-Chancellors Say (1)

Rishi Sunak should break his Conservative Party’s election promise not to raise the U.K.’s main rates of tax, two former Tory finance ministers said, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer prepares to announce his budget next month.

Speaking in Bloomberg interviews, Norman Lamont and Ken Clarke also suggested the chancellor should drop the government’s “triple lock” guarantee that increases state pensions each year as he strives to repair the economy.

Rishi Sunak

Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg

The election manifesto “was not written at a time when anybody contemplated such an extraordinary historic event as this grave Covid crisis,” said Clarke, who served as chancellor from ...