CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves all but admitted today she would break a manifesto promise not to raise income tax in her Budget, despite warnings of a Lib Dem-style election punishment.

Former Foreign Office minister Catherine West warned on Sunday night against proposals for a 2p rise in income tax, offset by a 2p cut in National Insurance.

The Labour MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, who lost her ministerial post in the September reshuffle, told Radio 4: “If I were Rachel, I think I wouldn’t be breaking the manifesto promise.

“I just think back to the Liberal Democrats and the university fees, because that was, you know, the big one for me that I remember and was very important for me.”

Cabinet ministers have reportedly made the same point in private to Ms Reeves, with one telling the Times: “My concern is there hasn’t been enough consideration of the consequences of breaking the manifesto commitment. 

“This could do to us what happened to the Liberal Democrats after the 2015 election, given voters are already extremely despondent with us.”

But today Ms Reeves told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I will set out the choices in the Budget.

“It would, of course be possible to stick with the manifesto commitments, but that would require things like deep cuts in capital spending and the reason why our productivity and our growth has been so poor these last few years is because governments have always taken the easy option to cut investment — in rail and road projects, in energy projects, in digital infrastructure.

“And as a result, we’ve never managed to get our productivity back to where it was before the financial crisis.

“So we’ve always got choices to make, and what I promised during the election campaign was to bring stability back to our economy, and what I can promise now is I will always do what I think is right for our country.”

She added: “We’re still going through the process at the moment of preparing the Budget measures.

“So those final decisions haven’t been taken yet, but as I take those measures, I will do what I believe is right for our country, and sometimes that means not always making the easy decisions, but the decisions that I think are in our national interest.”