GOVERNMENT MAKING ‘DIFFICULT CHOICES’ AHEAD OF THE BUDGET SAYS TREASURY MINISTER
TREASURY Minister James Murray has declined to confirm that the Government is set to raise employers’ National Insurance contributions in the Budget, saying that “difficult choices” must be made.
He said on GB News: “We said that working people pay National Insurance, income tax, and so we’ve had commitments around those and VAT.
“I can appreciate that over the next few weeks, and indeed over the previous couple of weeks, there’s going to be plenty of speculation about the Budget.
“This always happens in the run up to a Budget and the Chancellor will set out all of the decisions in the round about taxation, spending and welfare on October 30.
“I think it’s important to say there are going to be some difficult choices, because it’s crucial that we fix the public finances, that we get stability back into the heart of the Treasury, in the heart of government.
“But the reason why we’re taking those difficult choices is because the prize is economic growth.
“If we can get stability back into the economy, we increase investment and we get the economy growing, that’s the prize ahead.
“I can be very clear that working people pay National Insurance, income tax and VAT, and we’ve pledged not to increase them. And I think you got to remember the reason why that commitment was so important.
“Because when we were going into the last General Election, we’d had a government who had crashed the economy, who had seen living standards decline, squeezed working people.
“That’s why that promise was so important, and that’s why it’s so important for us to maintain it going into this Budget.
“It’s a really important commitment to us to not raise taxes on working people, as I’ve set out, and I’ve explained why that was so important to us, given the context of the election and the previous government.
“But actually, what I really want to emphasise as well is that the way that we make people better off in the long run is by getting the economy growing.
“And it comes back full circle to what we saw yesterday, and that big boost for investment, because it’s on the back of that investment, we can get the economy growing to make people better off.”
