‘There is more to come’: Kwarteng hints at more tax cuts
Kwasi Kwarteng has strongly hinted he will bring in more tax cuts, after today vowing “there is more to come”.
The chancellor said Prime Minister Liz Truss had only been in Number 10 for “19 days” and that the pair wanted to continue on a radical economic path.
Kwarteng announced the UK’s largest package of tax cuts in 50 years on Friday in a mini-Budget that rocked markets.
The top rate of Income Tax was cut from 45p to 40p, this year’s National Insurance rise was scrapped and a planned increase in Corporation Tax for the most profitable firms was cancelled.
A cut to the basic rate of Income Tax from 20p to 19p was also brought forward to 2023 instead of 2024.
The pound sunk to a 37-year-low against the US dollar and investors fled from Treasury gilts after the announcement, with widespread concerns about the decision to fund the cuts through borrowing.
Kwarteng told the BBC that he wouldn’t comment on market movements as chancellor and that he would not back down from the government’s radical change in economic policy.
“There is more to come,” he said.
“We have only been here 19 days. I want to see over the next year people retain more of their income because I believe it is the British people that are going to drive this economy.
“I think that if we can get some of the reforms … if we get business back on its feet, we can get this country moving and we can grow our economy, and that’s what my focus is 100 per cent about”.
The government’s plans have been criticised by Labour as a giveaway for the rich and big business, with Sir Keir Starmer today vowing to reverse the Income Tax cut to the 45p rate if his party wins the next election.
He also vowed to keep the cut to the 20p rate of Income Tax.
Starmer told the BBC: “I do not think that the choice to have tax cuts for those that are earning hundreds if thousands of pounds is the right choice when our economy is struggling the way it is, working people are struggling the way they are and our public services are on their knees. So it is the wrong choice.
“I would reverse the decision that they made on Friday, let’s be absolutely clear about that.”