Robert Jenrick tried to put Reform UK's chaotic conference back on track on Saturday by pledging to cut taxes for millions of voters within the first 100 days of forming a government.

Mr Jenrick, who is expected to become Chancellor if Nigel Farage wins the next general election, said that he would raise the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000 – taking 2.9 million people out of income tax altogether and ensuring the state pension remains out of reach of the Treasury.

Mr Jenrick – who promised to resign as Chancellor if he failed to deliver the tax cut within the promised timescale of 100 days – said it was his 'mission' to deliver the 'biggest rise in the personal allowance in its history'. Reform said that for a typical family the move would save £1,000 a year.

The annual earnings at which income tax starts to be paid has been frozen at £12,570 since 2021 and is due to stay at that level until 2031, but that has been penalising ever-greater numbers of workers as rising inflation erodes the value of the allowance. 

And the increase to the state pension next year to £13,000 will push millions of pensioners above the threshold, meaning they will have to start paying income tax.

The move came as Reform tried to escape the controversy over undercover filming aired by Channel 4 on Thursday which led to the suspension of aides Dan Jukes and James Orr over alleged attempts to circumvent electoral law.

Reform says that its long-term aim is to raise the personal allowance to £20,000 a year. Mr Jenrick told the conference in Birmingham: 'The task is mighty. But our cause is right and our country is worth it. They tried to knock us down. We're still standing. Now let's get Britain standing again.'

Mr Jenrick said the cost to the Treasury of raising the allowance would be £17.7billion in the first year, rising to £21billion in the fifth year of the next Parliament, and that it would be funded through £80billion of savings from cutting the welfare bill, Net Zero spending and the foreign aid budget.

He told delegates: 'There has never, in our lifetimes, been a worse time to be a worker in Britain. Britain now has the highest tax burden since records began...higher than when we were paying for the war.'

He added: 'Now, for the first time, the freeze means they're going to be taxing the state pension. What a disgrace...no wonder so many of our most ambitious young people are seeking their futures abroad.'

Mr Jenrick challenged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to match his pledge, saying: 'The hard choice for Burnham and for us is exactly the same. It's either welfare waste, foreign aid and migrants – or the British worker. We choose the worker.'

Speaking to GB News after the announcement, Mr Farage said: 'I have been arguing for raised allowances for 20 years,' adding: 'The next pension increase will take nearly ten million pensioners into paying tax. Just think of the cost and bureaucracy of all of that. So it actually helps simplify the tax system. It takes three million out of tax, but also it widens the gap between whether it's worth going to work or not going to work.

'And what Andy Burnham picked up on the door is what I've been picking up for ages. People say, "I get up at 5.30, I go to work, the traffic's awful, the job is hard, and I'm almost no better off than the people next door who sit around and smoke dope all day".

'If we don't get Britain working again, if we don't increase our productivity, we are going bust. It's just as simple as that.'

And Mr Farage also repeated his prediction on Saturday that Mr Burnham would call a general election in the spring.

A Labour Party spokesman said: 'Robert Jenrick only seems to be interested in making people better off when Reform UK are trying to distract from the latest scandal engulfing their party.'

A Tory Party source on Saturday told the MoS: 'Nigel said he would sack anyone if they can't deliver on their 100-day plans. We all know Rob wants the top job, so I guess this is one way of getting rid of a leadership rival.'

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