Gemma Dillon<\/span>West Yorkshire political reporter<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n As Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to deliver her autumn Budget in a month’s time, people living in her Leeds West and Pudsey constituency have shared their hopes – with the cost of living and tax rises foremost among their concerns.<\/b><\/p>\n The chancellor will deliver her second Budget on 26 November, and has acknowledged she is considering tax rises and spending cuts.<\/p>\n Speaking during a visit to Leeds, she told the BBC: “Although I can’t talk about individual measures at this stage, I understand that the cost of living is still people’s number-one concern.”<\/p>\n This was confirmed by her constituents in Pudsey, who said they were still struggling with the cost of living, while tax rises would put even more pressure on their finances.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Danny Dance, 66, is a former police officer and said he “can’t complain” about his own finances, but was worried about the pressure on his children and grandchildren. <\/p>\n He said that “Labour’s policy has always been tax the rich” but he believed the “very rich aren’t going to stand for that they’ll just move abroad”. <\/p>\n Mr Dance would like to see the chancellor “sort this tax out”, adding “tax is not the answer, all they ever seem to do is tax, tax tax, which is ridiculous”.<\/p>\n As a final thought, he said the way the winter fuel allowance was removed from pensioners last year was “disgusting” and that many could not afford to heat their homes.<\/p>\n Although that policy has since been reversed, Mr Dance still thought more should be done to help pensioners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In last year’s Budget the Chancellor raised National Insurance contributions <\/a>which meant from April, the rate employers paid in National Insurance rose from 13.8% to 15%.<\/p>\n And the threshold at which they started paying the tax on each employee’s salary was reduced from \u00a39,100 per year to \u00a35,000.<\/p>\n Susan Dubja, 65, was shopping on Pudsey High Street with her husband who is struggling to find work.<\/p>\n She would like to see National Insurance contributions scrapped completely in next month’s Budget.<\/p>\n Mrs Dubja said: “They want people to get a job, and they’re putting National Insurance up and now it is hard to get a job, businesses won’t employ my husband as it is too expensive.”<\/p>\n When it came to shopping, Mrs Dubja said she had seen prices go up significantly over the last few years, saying: “It’s not just pennies, it’s pounds, and it is not fair on people who are struggling.”<\/p>\n She said it felt like in the past few Budgets it was “the working man who is penalised”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Anthony Irwin, who is 63 and lives on his own, said he thought the chancellor must do something to help everyone with the rise in the cost of living.<\/p>\n “I don’t go shopping much so don’t notice the prices and then when I do and get to the till I stop and think there must be something wrong,” he said.<\/p>\n This week the UK inflation rate for all items remained stable<\/a> at a lower-than-expected 3.8% in the year to September, official figures show.<\/p>\n It means food and drink prices in the UK are increasing at their slowest rate in more than a year, while overall inflation remains unchanged for the third month in a row.<\/p>\n But on top of food Mr Irwin also has to budget for other bills like electricity and council tax, and said people just wanted to earn a “decent wage” without being “taxed to the hilt”.<\/p>\n He thought the country needed a break from rising taxes and to get back to “some kind of stability”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Speaking in Leeds, Reeves said: “I’m not going to start commenting on what’s going to be in the Budget as we are still going through that process.”<\/p>\n But she said she understood people’s anxieties over the cost of living.<\/p>\n She said: “During the election campaign and my whole time as chancellor I recognise that it is ordinary working people that have shouldered a lot of the burden over the last few years and so I will do things differently.<\/p>\n “I understand that the cost of living is still people’s number-one concern after the extraordinary levels of inflation we’ve experienced over the last few years but I do realise the lasting impact of those price rises on ordinary people across the country.”<\/p>\n BBC Politics North (Yorkshire and Lincolnshire) airs on BBC One at 10:00 GMT, or catch up <\/i>on iPlayer.<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"BBC](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/5876\/live\/3bc6f140-b0dd-11f0-8fe1-11b526942592.jpg.webp\")
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