Sunak and Hunt raise toast to tax cut with workers at warehouse after Budget

The Prime Minister raised a toast to the Chancellor’s tax cut with workers during a visit to a builders warehouse in London.

Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt had tea and biscuits with workers at a Selco Builders Warehouse following the Budget on Wednesday, where the Chancellor confirmed a 2p cut in national insurance for employees and the self-employed.

Mr Sunak asked workers if they “caught any of Jeremy’s budget” and the company’s CEO Howard Luft said he had watched it on a television in the canteen.

Mr Hunt said that Mr Luft “probably heard more of it than the people in the House of Commons”, adding “there was so much noise”.

Mr Sunak said: “When you get home, you’ll hear there’s some good news, froze fuel duty, so that’s not going up which is good news and actually for all your customers that are very reliant on their cars or vans they will be happy about that.

“Froze alcohol duties, that’s also good, for when you’re out Friday night.

“And then most importantly we’re continuing to cut your taxes. I don’t know if you remember Jeremy stood up and did a budget in the autumn, we cut national insurance by 2p which meant if you earn £35k, that’s a £450 tax cut that kicked in January – already in the January pay slip, but Jeremy just did another one of those, that’s £900 tax cut this year if you’re earning £35k, and that next one is coming in a few weeks’ time.

“So hopefully that will help because we know things haven’t been easy for the last few years.”

One of the workers said “thank you Jeremy”.

Mr Sunak said “we can drink to that, we can drink to the tax cut”.

Before their tea, Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt were shown how paint is mixed in store, and the Prime Minister took off his jacket in preparation as he helped to move the pot of paint around the machines which mix the colour.

They were then shown the colour, which Mr Sunak said was a “good solid blue”, adding “that’s what we like”.