Can tax cuts save the Tories? – podcast
Jeremy Hunt has offered up sweeping tax cuts in an attempt to jolt the UK economy back to life and salvage his party’s hopes of staying in power beyond the next election. Heather Stewart reports
Jeremy Hunt’s Treasury spent much of the past week hinting at tax cuts to come in the autumn statement, but the 2p reduction in national insurance still came as a surprise. It was packaged with tax cuts for businesses in what he called an “autumn statement for growth” worth £20bn.
But as Heather Stewart Nosheen Iqbal, Hunt also laid out a set of economic predictions that show flatlining economic growth for the next three years, coupled with real-terms spending cuts that critics say will put further pressure on struggling public services.
The statement – a budget in all but name – will be one of the chancellor’s last economic announcements before a general election which could come as early as spring. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, attacked the Conservatives for presiding over low growth and high taxes: “We all know that working people are worse off under the Conservatives.”
Photograph: Jessica Taylor/Reuters
