Poll finds public backs lower spending and lower taxes

Jeremy Hunt has been given food for thought ahead of the Budget as a poll showed the public supports lower public spending and lower taxes.

Research for MailOnline found 38 per cent want to see the government reduce the burden immediately – double the 19 per cent who favoured more tax.

Just under a third thought the current level – about to rise in April – was about right in the survey by Redfield & Wilton Strategies.   

Meanwhile, 31 per cent said they believed spending should be lower, compared to 28 per cent who insisted it should go up. A quarter backed the existing expenditure.

The findings emerged as Rishi Sunak slapped down critics demanding cuts to business taxes, warning the UK must ‘balance the books’.

Speaking in Northern Ireland after sealing a Brexit deal with the EU, the PM dashed the hopes of politicians including three of his predecessors as Chancellor.

George Osborne, Philip Hammond and Kwasi Kwarteng have led calls for the plan to increase the rate of corporation tax from 19p to 25p in April to be scrapped.

The overall tax burden is predicted to hit the highest level since the Second World War next year, as the government scrambles to balance the books after Covid and the Ukraine war.  

Taking questions in Belfast this morning the Prime Minister was told the new rate would be double that of Ireland, where corporation tax is 12.5 per cent.

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But he defended the UK change, saying the new rate was still the lowest of major world economies. 

‘We are borrowing an enormous amount of money. That’s not good, it is not good for the country, we have got to get our borrowing down and we have got to do that in a responsible way – and that (the tax rise) is going to help us do it,’ he said.

‘It might sound boring but it is deeply important. Because if we care about those kids who don’t want to grow up in poverty, we are not doing them any favours if we are just putting stuff on the country’s credit card and telling them to pick up the tab, because that is a sure-fire way for them not to have a happy and prosperous life.

‘At 25 per cent it will still be the lowest rate out of all the large economies that we compete with around the world.’

Mr Kwarteng scrapped the planned increase from 19p to 26p when he was briefly in No11 last year.

But the U-turn was abandoned when the economy went into a tailspin and Mr Hunt took over.

Mr Kwarteng told the Telegraph at the weekend the higher tax ‘doesn’t help our competitiveness’, adding: ‘We have got to look at ways to improve our attractiveness to foreign investors.’ 

And Mr Hammond added: ‘My view on corporation tax is always that it’s better to have lower than higher. I am quite disappointed that we will be increasing it to 25 per cent.

‘Businesses would accept 25 per cent corporation tax if they felt they had all the other bits in place for a growing economy. But the labour market is not working, the planning system is not working and none of the preferential trade deals with big powers around the world have come to pass.’

:: Redfield & Wilton Strategies surveyed 1,500 adults online on February 23. Results were weighted to represent the wider population.