The Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said that he will not raise taxes on working people if they win the general election next month.
Sir Keir said that the Labour Party will “pull the lever” for growth, however the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) director, Paul Johnson has criticised both or the major parties for not considering to raise taxes.
The IFS director said, “I wish they would just stop saying what they’re not going to do, because they tie themselves in knots.
“The more that they say, ‘We’re not going to increase council tax, we’re not going to increase income tax, national insurance contributions’ and so on, the more they tie themselves into either not being able to raise the money they need or raising it in ways which are actually more damaging.”
Johnson has called on both the Conservatives and Labour to be honest with the public on spending, borrowing and what could be the trade-offs with tax.
The IFS director has warned that the current plans will probably see some real-terms financial cuts for some departments unless there is higher taxes or borrowing that will find the money needed.
On Monday the Labour leaders that that the answer is growth, Sir Keir added, What Paul Johnson has said is you can’t hope for growth – he’s right about that. You can’t hope for growth, you have to plan for growth.
“The single biggest problem of the last 14-years is we haven’t had significant growth. If we’d had growth in the last 14-years at the same rate as the last Labour government, we’d have tens of billions of pounds to spend on our public services.
“I ran a public service; I care about public services. We are not going back to austerity, but we will pull the lever called ‘growth’.”
