By Vivienne Russell | 2 December 2013
Current levels of state spending are ‘reckless’ and ‘suffocating’ businesses, a Conservative MP claimed today in a pamphlet for the Right-wing Centre for Policy Studies think-tank.
Dominic Raab urged the chancellor to use this week’s Autumn Statement to ramp up his austerity programme by continuing to hold down public sector pay, cutting welfare and slashing the civil service.
‘The elephant in the room is high levels of government spending and taxation hurting UK competitiveness and the squeezed middle,’ he said.
‘It’s time to stop suffocating business and give hard-pressed families more of their money back. The only honest way to do that is cut out more of the reckless state spending holding Britain back.’
Raab’s pamphlet, Ease the squeeze: tax cutting priorities in an age of austerity, identified spending cuts worth £17.6bn, which could be implemented now.
These comprise: halving the number of Whitehall departments (saving £8bn a year), rigorous implementation of public sector pay limits (saving £2.4bn a year), a three-year cash freeze on benefits (saving £3.4bn a year), lowering the benefit cap to £20,000 (saving £840m a year), and cutting back on ‘middle-class welfare’ (saving £3bn a year).
Raab also said the Conservative Party’s next election manifesto should include a commitment to cut the overall tax burden. He made a host of tax-cutting suggestions including a freeze on business rates (with a total exemption for small businesses), the abolition of stamp duty for homes under £500,000 and a one percentage point cut to both the basic and higher rates of income tax.
