Jeremy Hunt says £100,000 a year is 'not that much' for people in his constituency

Jeremy Hunt leaves Downing Street last week Photo: Toby Melville/Reuters

Chancellor says £100,000 a year is «not a huge salary» for people in his Surrey constituency.

Jeremy Hunt made the remark in a post on X (formerly Twitter) about calls he made to residents as part of his work as an MP. < /p>

Labor said his statement showed how «desperately out of touch» the Tory government was.

Talking about phone calls from the constituency, the chancellor said: «I spoke to a woman from Godalming about eligibility for the government's bid childcare, which is not available if one parent earns more than £100,000.»

» This is an issue that I would really like to see resolved after the next election, as I know that wages in our area not that much if you have a mortgage to pay.”

☎️Calling constituencies ☎️
The first thing I did was call Rosemary French, President of the Cranleigh Chamber of Commerce, to talk about the planned changes to the High Street. She told me about the problems of insufficient sidewalks, the huge success of street markets and… pic.twitter.com/A5zupGOCsE

— Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) March 22, 2024

UK According to the Office for National Statistics, the average annual salary for full-time employees in April 2023 was £34,963.

Shadow Treasurer-General Jonathan Ashworth said: “The Chancellor has again shown how desperately out of touch the Tories are on the side of working people when he argues that someone earning £100,000 a year is not a «huge salary.»

«The vast majority of working people in this country would dream of earning that amount, yet they are all forced pay for 14 years of Tory failures.”

“It is astonishing that the Chancellor is complaining about mortgage costs when it is the Conservatives who have wrecked the economy with their kamikaze budget and sent mortgage costs through the roof.

“Only a Labor government will stand up for working people and solve the cost of living crisis.”< /p>

Surrey county councilor Paul Follows, who is set to stand as the Liberal Democrat candidate against Mr Hunt for the seat of Godalming and Ash at the general election, said: «It may be a case of being a multi-millionaire who can channel over £100 000 people participated in his own campaign without breaking a sweat — but that's far more than the national or local average, and is an important indicator of why the cost of living crisis affecting residents across the country seems to have completely missed him. ”

In his Budget earlier this month, Mr Hunt announced an increase in the threshold at which the benefit amount per child income starts from April between £50,000 and £60,000.

It also announced that partial child benefit will be paid where the highest earner earns up to £80,000.

Working parents can receive free childcare for children aged three and four.

To be eligible, most must earn more than £8,670 but less than £100,000 a year under current rules.