Rachel Reeves targeted Britain’s wealthiest households with a £26bn tax-raising budget to fund scrapping the two-child benefit policy and cutting energy bills.

On a chaotic day that involved key details of her budget accidentally being released early by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the chancellor defended the measures, saying she was “asking everyone to make a contribution to repair the public finances”, but that she wanted the wealthiest to pay the most.

While insisting she had avoided reckless borrowing and dangerous cuts, the budget will push the tax take to an all-time high of 38% of GDP in five years’ time. .

More than 1.7 million workers will be dragged into either paying tax for the first time or pushed into a higher band by an additional three-year freeze on in

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