A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Nigel Farage has promised a return to damaging austerity, taking an axe to public services, with no cuts off the table.

“He complained the minimum wage is too high for young workers, while doubling down on his golden giveaway to foreign billionaires.

“Reform would slash the NHS, schools, and pensions – and cancel Labour’s investment in local roads, rail, and clean energy, putting millions of jobs at risk and wreaking havoc on family finances.”

Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: “After a speech that was supposed to be Reform’s attempt to restore their economic credibility, Nigel Farage has left the public with far more questions than answers.

“Farage did not set out which of the £140 billion of commitments he made last year he still stands by, and which he has now dropped. And in a speech which was supposed to be demonstrating fiscal restraint, he instead announced ‘the biggest council house building programme ever’, which could run into the tens of billions of pounds.

“He did not take this opportunity to reverse Reform’s profligate policy to scrap the two-child benefit cap, which shows he is not serious about tackling the spiralling welfare bill. The only welfare reform policies he could name were watered down versions of what the Conservatives have already announced.

“Furthermore, Reform appears to still be wedded to their damaging obsession with nationalisation, promising to take industries into public ownership without compensation to shareholders, which would mean expropriating people’s pension pots and destroying private investment in Britain.

“After this rambling, incoherent speech, it is clear Reform’s economy policy is in chaos. Farage might claim he’s not a ‘one man band’, but he can’t even tell us who his Chancellor would be. This is not serious, it is just more announcements without a plan.”

Responding to Reform UK’s press conference on the economy, John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance pressure group, said: “Nigel Farage is right to position spending reductions at the heart of his fiscal policy given the rapidly deteriorating public finances. The fact that public sector pensions are in the crosshairs suggests they are genuinely serious about the scale of the challenge.

“But taxpayers will be worried that if tax cuts are delayed it could mean tax cuts are denied. The average household is now paying well over a million pounds in tax over a lifetime, meaning the tax burden is as severe an emergency as the surge in government spending.

“Reform policymakers need to conduct a detailed analysis of the tax system to identify immediate, growth-boosting tax cuts such as stamp duty as well as marginal tax thresholds to ensure they can provide instant relief.”

Nigel Farage said Reform UK would “immediately” ditch Labour’s inheritance tax raid on farmers and increase the tax-free personal allowance, which has been frozen at £12,750.

He said: “We want to cut taxes, of course we do, but we understand substantial tax cuts given the dire state of debt and our finances are not realistic at this current moment in time, there are some relatively modest things we would do.

“We would immediately remove inheritance tax from family farms and from family-run businesses, and we will raise the thresholds at which people start to pay tax to begin the process of getting people out of the 16-hour-a-week working debt trap that so many people find themselves in.”

Nigel Farage said his previous promise to scrap the two-child benefit cap would apply to “British working couples” only.

The Reform leader told the press conference: “There seem to have been several misunderstandings as to where Reform stands on benefits, as if we are the party that will throw around the money like confetti, based, I think, around my comments on the two child cap and removing it.

“But what I said was we should remove the two child cap for British working couples. And what I meant by that is for lower-paid couples who are both working, the cost of childcare is exorbitant.

“It’s a disincentive for having more children, a disincentive for going out to work and so I thought a tax credit for a couple where both were working, was actually a very, very pro-family policy in every single way.”

Nigel Farage called for more North Sea oil and gas as he turned to net zero.

He said: “We will scrap all net zero subsidies. We will bring down the cost of energy. We will get rid of the insane North Sea taxes put on by Jeremy Hunt and that have been added on the top by Rachel Reeves.

“Let’s get the North Sea operating. Let’s have a look at some of the new onshore gas fields that have been found in this country that will produce tens of thousands of well paid jobs.”

Nigel Farage said: “This hard-Left socialist dogma that it’s popular to tax the rich, that the rich won’t move, they’ll stay and pay more, that I’m afraid has infected virtually the entirety of our political class, and it’s wrong.

“So let me make it clear. I want as many high-earning people as possible living in this country and paying as much tax as they legally have to, because if the rich leave and the rich don’t pay tax, then the poorer in society will all have to pay more tax. It’s as simple as that.”

Nigel Farage said: “One of my own great frustrations is that Brexit has been squandered.

“The opportunity to sensibly deregulate, the opportunity to become competitive globally, all of that has been squandered.

“And the worst thing is that regulations and the way regulators behave with British business is now worse than it was at the time of the Brexit referendum vote.”

The Reform UK leader is using notes – for what seems like the first time in ages – to deliver his big speech on the economy.

Perhaps a sign that he doesn’t want any cock-ups and to show that his party means business.

Nigel Farage predicted Sir Keir Starmer will be forced to call a general election two years early in 2027.

The Reform UK leader said: “The markets are getting nervy. We’ve seen this with 10 and 30-year gilt yields. In fact, I think my own view is that in two budgets’ time, the markets will actually force the Chancellor into what will be a genuine austerity budget, at which point the Left in the Labour Party won’t buy it.

“And it’s why I still stand by my prediction that there will be a general election, caused by economic collapse that will happen in 2027.”

Nigel Farage told the press conference: “I think for some years we’ve actually been living under an illusion. We’ve not been prepared to face up to just how much of an economic mess we’re genuinely in.

“As we slip down the global league tables, we kid ourselves, ‘Well, it’s okay we’ve got GDP growth.’

“But there wouldn’t have been any GDP growth over the course of the last few years if it wasn’t for mass migration on a scale hitherto never even contemplated.”

Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf has introduced party leader Nigel Farage at the press conference in London.

Reform UK’s head of policy Zia Yusuf is opening the press conference in London.

He said: “The Tories and Labour have wrecked the public finances. Reform UK will restore them.

“For decades now, the Tories and Labour have suffocated the British economy, wasted billions of pounds every year prioritising foreign citizens, giving us the most expensive energy costs in the world and raising taxes as a percentage of GDP in this country to the highest levels since World War Two.”

Mr Yusuf added: “The political class are running this country’s economy off a cliff. Britain is headed for economic catastrophe unless we urgently change course.”

Should be starting soon.

A big turnout from big corporates here as well.

I’ve been to quite a few Reform UK press conferences in the past fortnight, but this one feels much much bigger.

I’m sitting in a packed and grand room in the heart of the city of London, where Nigel Farage will make his biggest speech yet on the economy.

It starts in about 10 minutes.

In his speech, Nigel Farage will say: “When it comes to Brexit, an excuse we understand that Rachel Reeves will be using, the truth is we have not taken advantage of the opportunities to deregulate and become more competitive.

“In fact, the harsh truth is that regulations and regulators in many areas are worse than they were back in 2016.”

He will add: “Reform UK will do things very differently. We will be the most pro-business, pro-entrepreneurship government this country has seen in modern times. This will mean more well-paid jobs for workers.”

In his speech, Nigel Farage will say: “Reform will restore them. In doing so, we can stop this doom-loop of raising taxes on people every year.

“Reform will get public spending under control, so that the nation’s borrowing costs come down. Then, and only then, will I cut taxes to stimulate growth. We must get the economy growing.

“The Tories ran 14 deficits in a row, near-tripled the national debt and blew up people’s mortgages. Labour are even worse, already borrowing £40bn more than promised and raising taxes at a pace not seen in 55 years.”

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander praised the “incredible bravery of the train staff, the train driver who got that train into Huntingdon station, the Network Rail controller, the signaller who got that train to a place of safety”.

She told Sky News: “Most of all, I would like to say thank you to the emergency services and the one individual who is still critically ill in hospital, who is stable I’m pleased to say, but he went into work that morning to work on that train service, to serve passengers and he put himself in harm’s way.

“He went in to do his job and he left work a hero. And there are people who are alive today because of his actions and his bravery.”

Ms Alexander said there would be an increase in visible police patrols at stations but insisted public transport was safe.

“Public transport generally is a low-crime environment – and this incident was absolutely horrific on Saturday night, and I don’t want to take away from that in any way – but generally, our trains are some of the most safest forms of public transport anywhere in the world.

“For every one million passenger journeys that are made, there are 27 crimes.”

She added: “Now for me, one crime is one crime too many, so we will after this review all of our security measures because that is the right thing to do.”

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the suspect in the mass train stabbing was not known to counter-terrorism police or MI5.

She told Times Radio: “I’m not going to speculate about his motivations or the events that led up to the incident.”

She added: “What I can tell you is that he was not known to counter-terrorism police, he was not known to the security services, and he was not known to the Prevent programme.”

Asked if the suspect was known to mental health services, she said: “I’m not in a position to share any more information about the individual, I’m afraid.”

Conservative shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said Reform could not be taken seriously on the economy “when their promises disintegrate after five minutes, and they remain committed to extra welfare spending and a huge expansion of the state”.

He said: “They are a one-man band and have resorted to junking promises they made only recently in a desperate attempt to appear economically credible.

“In local government they have failed to find savings and are instead planning tax hikes on hard-working families.”

Labour said Nigel Farage’s new proposals would “take us back to austerity”.

A party spokesperson said: “We’ve seen from the councils Reform run that they’ve failed to deliver the savings they already promised and are cutting services and raising taxes as a result.

“They’ve said themselves that those councils are a shop window for what a Reform government would do nationally – we know that this is more empty promises and no real plan.”

Nigel Farage will set out his economic plans if Reform UK comes to power in a speech today.

The Reform leader will pledge to form “the most pro-business” government in British history.

He will promise sweeping deregulation, arguing the UK has not made the most of Brexit.

Mr Farage will also row back from his party’s 2024 promise to cut £90 billion of taxes, saying Labour and the Tories have “wrecked the public finances” and Reform would need to get public spending under control first.