Introduction
There was a time in our country's proud history when Britain was the
wealthiest nation on earth. Even though the inevitable rise of the
United States and the immense costs of two world wars ended our dominant
position, Britain still remained a strong and prosperous economy. Today,
though, Britain is becoming a second-rate economic power.
Modern Britain finds herself in a position of sustained economic
decline. Taxation as a share of national income is at its highest level
since 1948. The productive private sector has been increasingly crowded
out by a burgeoning and inefficient state, which now accounts for close
to half of all economic activity. Public debt has risen materially,
while growth in output per head has stagnated to an extent not seen in
any prolonged period since the Industrial Revolution.
This decline was not inevitable. It has been set in motion by
deliberate political choices. Successive governments, both Conservative
and Labour, have abandoned the economic principles that underpinned
Britain's historic prosperity. Our competitiveness has been undermined,
regulation has expanded intrusively into almost every sphere of life,
taxation has increased, and the role of the state has grown far beyond
its proper function.
Only three decades ago Britain was characterised by relatively low
taxation, moderate public spending, stable prices, and a broadly
functional state. It possessed one of the strongest public balance
sheets in the developed world, attracted substantial inward investment,
and enjoyed steady economic growth. Now, despite an extra £300 billion
of public spending (in nominal terms it is even higher) since 2020, most
Britons believe the resulting services to be materially worse than
before.
Worse still, we face considerable labour issues, with some 246,000
British nationals, many of them young and enterprising, fleeing their
home to less economically intrusive parts of the world - from Australia
to Dubai - in the year ending December 2025
alone.1 This
brain drain has been accompanied by mass inward migration of foreign
peoples with much lower skills, often from culturally incompatible
third-world nations. This influx has acted as a net drain on public
services and contributed to a profoundly unbalanced housing market. We
view the replacement of our children and grandchildren with less
productive, low-skilled foreign labour as a very poor trade. For a
nation to grow and prosper, it must provide better opportunities for
future generations. In this respect, the current system has failed on
every metric.
Without exaggeration we face a crisis. The crisis is economic,
cultural and moral. This paper largely deals with one aspect of the
crisis, namely the economic aspect. However, we at Restore Britain
acknowledge that economic decisions always have moral and cultural
consequences. Our purpose here is to outline how we can turn our once
great nation around and share in a fairer and more prosperous
future.
We thus outline our general economic philosophy. Future papers will
address the specifics involved in areas such as student loan repayments,
regulatory cutbacks, and much else in greater detail.
We set out our direction of travel and where we wish to be at the end
of the first Parliament, five years after an election. The pace of our
reforms will be determined by the need for stability and our tax cuts
will be strictly funded with public spending adjustments. But the
direction is clear: taxes will fall, spending will be reduced, and the
web of needless regulation will be slashed.
Our aim is to return as much economic decision-making capacity to
ordinary people as possible. This we believe is the only direction
compatible with both a free society and long-term prosperity. Our
priority is to foster the conditions for strong independent families and
neighbourhoods. This is a moral vision that rejects overbearing state
coercion in favour of the integrity of the family and the freedom of the
individual.
We believe that prosperity comes from the hard work of the British
people. Our proposals are a radical shift from previous Labour and
Conservative governments, who have overseen a period of rapid decline,
but necessary to put Britain's derailed economy back on the right track.
Although our policies are a radical change, our aims are not
unrealistic. We shall pursue them tactfully, but we dissent from the
conventional wisdom that essential public services - be it healthcare or
education - are faltering for lack of financial resources. Within two
Parliaments, our target is a tax, spending, and regulatory regime on
course to become roughly equivalent within a further ten years to that
inherited by Tony Blair in 1997 - a state of circa 33% GDP, as opposed
to 45% today. All told, this is a decades-long project.
Needless to say, there is no inherent magic to this 33% figure. We
care more about the purpose of government than the size of government.
These are of course related questions, but they are not identical. The
British state grew in size throughout the Second World War
without undergoing a change in purpose. A perennial purpose -
in this case, the duty to defend the realm - merely adapted to a new
situation, which in turn required an expansion in size. At Restore
Britain, we believe that the size of government should follow the
purpose of government, not the other way around. But in practice, given
our opposition to the constant interference of modern bureaucracy in our
lives and our support for government with a maximally light touch, this
will mean a smaller state - at the very least similar in size to what we
had before 1997.
We can achieve these targets, not despite the desire for
improved public services, but in a way that fulfils the desire
for improved public services. The British state spent an eye-watering
£1,290 billion on such services last year. Assuming 29 million
households, that adds up to £44,000 per household. We believe the
British people deserve better public services for such large sums. With
such excessive government spending, our leaders forget how national
wealth is built up, as well as how critical it is for Britain to be
globally competitive if we are to have any future at all.
Our recovery as a nation will be neither easy nor immediate. Decay is
at least 30 years in the making, so recovery cannot be painless. It will
be slow initially, but as confidence builds it will gather pace. To
continue as we are is to guarantee our failure.There are plenty of
examples throughout history of troubled lands rejuvenating themselves,
but perhaps the example closest to home is that of Eastern Europe after
the Cold War. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, most Eastern
European countries were demoralised, poor, and manufacturing items that
few wanted. Today, Poland is on track to be richer by head than Britain
within 10
years.2
Britain's GDP per capita was approximately 8.9 times higher than
Poland's in 1991, a testament to Poland's success and our
failure.3
If, in a world of geopolitical uncertainty, we cannot find a way to
grow Britain's prosperity, ours will be the last privileged generation
in these Isles. It is that serious. In the coming months, we will flesh
out in detail our ideas, but here is the overview of our plan.
A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism
does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social
cooperation and the disintegration of society.
Ludwig von Mises (Human Action: A Treatise on
Economics, 1949)
Our Economic Principles
We believe that free markets are the most effective mechanism ever
discovered for maximising the wealth of nations. Insofar as they
generate wealth, free markets are therefore instruments to national
flourishing. But a nation is first and foremost a home, not a business.
There are times when it is vital to put matters of national security and
self-sufficiency above purely profit-seeking considerations, especially
when it means ensuring the survival of our nation and her people. Nor
would we hesitate, where necessary for the retention of critical
supplies like food, energy, and medicine, to pass new laws and invoke
existing ones to strengthen our resilience as a self-sufficient nation
amid intensifying global volatility.
A Restore Britain government would not only consider the implications
of our economic policy on national security, but also their impact upon
society. No modern society thrives without strong families and cohesive
communities trusted to govern themselves, engage in free enterprise, and
pursue the natural rewards of hard work. Confidence in the enduring
nature of these arrangements is thus essential. There are many factors
that build such confidence, but the core ones are social order, the rule
of law, the absence of arbitrary and unpredictable raids on livelihoods,
reasonable taxes in exchange for accountable government, and modest
regulations.
One cornerstone of our policy is fiscal stability. The greatest
threat to that stability is the ever-growing national debt. Our medium
term aim is therefore to balance the budget and gradually reduce public
debt as a share of GDP. This is the opposite of what successive
governments have done over the past 40 years, running persistent budget
deficits that have left Britain in an increasingly precarious fiscal
position. Britain now has a public debt of £2.9 trillion, almost 100% of
GDP. This already alarming figure does not include off-balance sheet
public sector pension liabilities. These are estimated to be worth
between £1.6-2.2 trillion and may even be as high as £3-5.5 trillion.
Our aim is to repair the national balance sheet. We would not hesitate
to recover money from the inordinately expensive Civil Service Pension
Scheme in order to do so. Our efforts will take time, but they are
absolutely necessary.
All other things being equal, fiscal stability leads to financial
stability, which leads to currency strength. That is another core
contributor to stability. We have suffered a cost of living crisis in
recent years as inflation has again surged. This is a direct result of
the money printing that funded lockdown. The money supply grew rapidly
and unsustainably, undermining savings and work. We will ensure the Bank
of England is tasked at all times with strict control of money supply
growth, because there can be no prosperity without monetary stability.
Short-term fixes and political expediency are the enemy of both.
Over time, we will claw back the £300 billion of excess post-lockdown
spending that has occurred over the lifetimes of two Parliaments. This
means recycling the British people's money back into their own hands,
creating a virtuous cycle of growth as opposed to the death spiral of
today. It will be a gradual process, but the direction will be clear.
That signal will support investment.
Allied to excess public spending without any obvious improvement in
service is a tax system that is unbelievably complex, increasingly
arbitrary, and much too onerous. We will reduce the tax burden, with a
longer term ambition to take it back to around 30% of GDP - the level
experienced before Tony Blair became Prime Minister. Our tax cuts will
in scale match public spending reductions. Thus, our proposals will be
fully funded.
Moreover, we intend to simplify the tax system. In time, numerous
small and arbitrary taxes will be scrapped as we move to a streamlined,
clear, and transparent structure where all know where they stand without
the need of a tax advisor. Again, the complexity created has occurred
over a generation. Our improvements will be clearly flagged but staged
over time as the economy recovers.
We believe that there must be a sensible and predictable framework of
rules. Regulation in certain spheres are necessary. But regulation must
be proportional. What we have seen over the last 30 years goes way
beyond that. Almost every aspect of life is now controlled. This is
stifling not only innovation and growth, but also personal freedom.
Britain worked far better a generation ago. In office, we will review
the vast swathes of regulation enacted over, initially, the last decade,
but in time over the last 25 years, with a presumption to repeal unless
there is an overwhelming reason not to do so.
On pensions, we have seen the government attempt to insert clauses to
direct pension investment towards favoured schemes. At Restore Britain,
we have no interest in hijacking private pensions to back voguish social
engineering projects. As far as we are concerned, any money in a private
pension pot belongs to the hard-working pension-holder and them
alone.
Monetary Policy
The primary statutory objective of the Bank of England is to maintain
price stability, defined by the government as an inflation target of 2%
as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). Prior to 1997,
responsibility for setting interest rates ultimately rested with the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Monetary policy has since been delegated to
the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which enjoys a
significant degree of so-called 'independence.' It would be truer to
call it unaccountability.
After all, since gaining its independence, the Bank now wields
enormous power, much of which is beyond both political and popular
scrutiny. However, the Bank's record in recent years has been woeful. In
the midst of the COVID-19 lockdowns, the Bank argued that there would be
deflation as the country exited the lockdown restrictions in July 2021.
In actual fact, its programme of Quantitative Easing directly
contributed to the precise opposite. The Bank's ill-conceived expansion
of the money supply caused dramatic inflation, which peaked at 11.1% in
October 2022 - a 41-year high. Extraordinarily, the Bank does not
acknowledge this failure.
In a similar way, the programme of Quantitative Easing introduced
after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis fundamentally altered the conduct
of British monetary policy with remarkably little parliamentary debate.
Although this action may have stabilised financial markets during
periods of acute stress, it also inflated the value of financial assets,
disproportionately benefiting existing asset holders while making home
ownership increasingly unattainable for younger generations. The
long-term implications for intergenerational fairness in household
formation received next to no consideration. In the 1970s, the average
British home cost around three years' earnings. Today, it costs roughly
eight years' earnings nationally and well over ten years' earnings in
many parts of southern England.
Price stability will be a central objective of a Restore Britain
government. Before taking office, we will announce our nominees for the
MPC to assume their responsibilities at the earliest opportunity. They
will be economists committed to maintaining monetary stability through a
combination of long-term thinking and patriotic self-discipline.
A Restore Britain government will reform the Bank of England's
mandate. We will end the routine use of monetary financing by requiring
explicit authorisation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer before any
future programme of monetary expansion can be undertaken. Such
authorisation would be granted only under the most exceptional
circumstances. Monetary expansion cannot create real wealth. It simply
postpones necessary economic adjustment.
Monetary discipline must be matched by fiscal discipline. This paper
sets out policies designed to lower public expenditure and expand
private sector wealth creation. Persistent structural deficits increase
dependence upon government borrowing, place upward pressure on future
taxation, and create political incentives for inflationary monetary
policy. A disciplined MPC, operating alongside a fiscally responsible
government committed to reducing the state's reliance on debt finance,
would provide the stable macroeconomic environment necessary for
long-term investment, productivity growth, and rising living
standards.
As an interim framework, the government will require the Bank to
place greater emphasis on the growth of broad monetary aggregates when
formulating monetary policy, recognising that sustained expansion of the
money supply is ultimately incompatible with long-term price stability.
Over the longer term, we will examine options to place Sterling upon a
firmer institutional foundation. The experience of modern fiat
currencies demonstrates the persistent political temptation to finance
government expenditure through monetary expansion and currency
debasement rather than through fiscal responsibility.
Governments cannot be relied upon to exercise perpetual monetary
restraint when they possess the unrestricted ability to create money. In
the long term, we would therefore investigate mechanisms, including
commodity backing such as the Gold Standard and other institutionalised
monetary constraints, that would strengthen confidence in pound sterling
and impose greater fiscal discipline. The major virtue of non-fiat
currency systems is that they reflect genuine human endeavour rather
than impulsive human appetite.
Sound money is one of the essential foundations of a prosperous free
society. Our immediate priority is to restore monetary discipline,
eliminate routine deficit monetisation, and bring the era of persistent
Quantitative Easing to an end. Quantitative Easing rewards financial
engineers at the expense of genuine wealth creators.
Westminster's Irresponsible Fiscal Explosion
The growth in public spending since 2020 is literally unparalleled.
As outlined by the chart below, on the OBR's own forecasts public
spending will have increased by more than £300bn over just 8 years. In
exchange, services are generally considered to have deteriorated.
The recent £300bn worthless expansion only exacerbates a long-term
trend. When Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997, the state was much
smaller at 35% of GDP. Today spending is almost half of our overall
output. This is deeply unhealthy. It is resulting in a wealth-creating
sector that is far too small to fund public services effectively. Tax
and spend has been totally counter-productive.
With the increase in public spending, we have seen very substantial
tax rises to a level unprecedented since 1948. Broadly from a low of 28%
GDP, tax now accounts for 38% GDP - a relative increase of some 35%. To
repeat, there has been no corresponding improvement in the quality of
public services.
Despite record spending and taxation, the public finances are
exceptionally poorly controlled, with the national debt increasing from
£322 billion in 1997 to over £2,900 billion today. Despite boasting one
of the strongest public sector balance sheets just 20 years ago, Britain
now has a bottom quartile balance sheet compared with our European
neighbours. By saddling future generations with such crippling financial
liabilities, previous generations have failed to uphold their obligation
to subsequent generations. They have lived more extravagantly than they
should have at their children and grandchildren's expense.
The natural consequence of gratuitous centralisation is stagnant
growth. Britain has increased spending, tax, and debt in ways which
outside war are without precedent. Further, over the last 20 years we
have lived through extraordinary technological development. 25 years ago
there was no significant digital economy, whereas today the economy has
been utterly transformed. With that transformation, one might have
imagined GDP growth and prosperity would accelerate - and so it should
have.
As productivity increases, so does wealth. But alas, since 2005
growth per head has been minimal at 0.5% per annum. Since 2019, it has
been close to zero. This is unprecedented. Britain's GDP growth per head
has reached a point of total stagnation. Barely up since 2008, we have
suffered our worst performance in 200 years of economic analysis. Since
the Industrial Revolution, GDP per head has consistently grown at just
over 2% per annum. The chart below shows this trend since 1955.
Moreover, Britain's poor performance, while mirrored by France and
Germany, is not the global norm. The United States, Canada, Australia,
Singapore, and others have all grown much faster. This is principally a
European problem.
The factors that have led to this catastrophic performance are public
debt, counter-productive spending growth, a crowding out of the private
sector, and unparalleled regulation. All have crushed growth.
Going forward, the OBR broadly assumes that our economy will grow by
around 1.8% in real terms per annum over the next few years. Regardless
of whether that analysis is accurate (and it would represent a
significant uptick on recent experience), by historical standards that
degree of growth is pedestrian. It is a measure of our failure that this
is the baseline - one that, incidentally, we suspect is far too
optimistic. Economic growth is the principal driver of tax receipts. As
an illustration, if the British economy were to grow by an average of
just one percentage point more per year than the OBR currently forecasts
over the next decade, the economy would be around £460 billion larger. A
larger economy generates higher tax revenues even at lower tax rates,
making it possible to improve public services while also reducing the
tax burden. Sustained economic growth offers the prospect of lower
taxes, stronger public finances, and better public services.
Figure 6: UK GDP comparisons. Assumed current trend growth,
imagined trend +1%, impact on GDP and tax take assuming tax at 30% GDP
£billion
| Year |
Real GDP trend of 1.8% |
Trend +1% |
Difference |
Increased tax take |
| 2025 |
3040 |
3040 |
|
|
| 2026 |
3095 |
3125 |
30 |
9 |
| 2027 |
3150 |
3213 |
62 |
19 |
| 2028 |
3207 |
3303 |
95 |
29 |
| 2029 |
3265 |
3395 |
130 |
39 |
| 2030 |
3324 |
3490 |
166 |
50 |
| 2031 |
3383 |
3588 |
204 |
61 |
| 2032 |
3444 |
3688 |
244 |
73 |
| 2033 |
3506 |
3792 |
285 |
86 |
| 2034 |
3569 |
3898 |
328 |
98 |
| 2035 |
3634 |
4007 |
373 |
112 |
| 2036 |
3699 |
4119 |
420 |
126 |
| 2037 |
3766 |
4234 |
469 |
141 |
Source: Restore Estimates
At the turn of the century, Britain was in good shape. Our public
debt to GDP ratio was modest and manageable at under 40%. We were a top
quartile performer on this measure, as can be seen from the chart
below.
Fast forward to today and with a debt to GDP ratio of almost 100%
Britain is unquestionably in one of the weaker positions, as outlined
below.
However, the rate of change is particularly worrying with the growth
in debt firmly at the bottom of the pack as outlined below. It should be
noted that increased debt is not inevitable, with a number of countries
improving their balance sheet positions over the same time frame.
Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark stand out as otherwise similar advanced
economies performing much more effectively - all, we should further
reflect, with much stronger growth profiles.
It is worth noting that Britain and the EU are global tax outliers,
too. Europe is without question one of the most heavily taxed regions in
the developed world. As outlined in the chart below, average tax in
Britain, while marginally lower than the EU average, is 4 points higher
than the OECD average, 8 points lower than Australia, 11 points lower
than the United States. Chinese tax is less than half of ours. In an
uncertain globalised world, this puts us at a perilous disadvantage.
Worse, the competitive advantage we used to hold over the EU has
largely disappeared, with a consequent loss of inward investment. This
is not a great square for an open trading economy.
The results of Britain's decision to expand the state has been
stagnation. As we can see from the chart below, Britain's growth record
over the last 20 years has been exceptionally weak at around half that
annually of Canada, Australia, and the United States. To point out that
we have done marginally better than the EU is to damn ourselves with
faint praise.
Spending will be curtailed.
As we have already shown, the notion that public services have been
starved of cash is absurd. Almost 1.2 million additional people now work
in the public sector than did at the end of 2019. Private sector
employment over the same period has stagnated. In fact, the chart below
illustrates that virtually all of the growth in employment since the eve
of lockdown has been in the public sector. This is unsustainable. Civil
society funds the public sector, not the other way around.
If we then examine real spending growth per government department
since 2019-20, we can see that average departmental spending is up 17%
in real terms. Most notable is the increase in the debt servicing cost,
which has risen by 83% to a staggering £120 billion per annum - almost
10% of all public spending. One in every ten pounds the government
spends goes on covering the interest on loans. No responsible person
would run a household with such a balance sheet. Nor should the nation
be run so negligently. This is a millstone around the necks of future
generations.
Yet we continue to see substantial increases in almost all budgets.
In raw cash terms, prior to lockdown health spending was £164 billion.
Today it is £241 billion for outcomes that have generally deteriorated.
Similarly, the social protection budget has increased by over 12% to
reach in excess of £380 billion in 2024-5 - £100 billion greater than in
2019-20. This growth for no productive gain is highly damaging to
Britain's potential.
Figure 13: UK real public spending growth 2024-5 on
2019-20
| Sector |
Increase 2024-25 on 2019-20 |
| Public sector debt interest |
82.8% |
| Employment policies |
42.9% |
| Science and technology |
31.1% |
| Housing and community |
26.7% |
| Public and common services |
26.0% |
| Defence |
21.8% |
| Public order and safety |
20.4% |
| Health |
19.2% |
| Environment protection |
17.1% |
| Total Managed Expenditure |
17.0% |
| Social protection |
12.6% |
| Transport |
9.4% |
| Education |
6.0% |
| Recreation, culture and religion |
-5.2% |
| Enterprise and economic dev |
-9.7% |
| Agriculture, fisheries, forestry |
-11.3% |
| International services |
-27.6% |
Source: Office for National Statistics
Below we give in broad outline the measures we will take to cut
public spending. We estimate savings proposed incrementally to be £178
billion by the end of the first Parliament, which is around 2/3 of the
excess of spending since 2019-20.
The principles behind our proposals are as follows:
a) Fiscal Fairness. Those who have paid
into a system are entitled to the services it offers. As such, citizens
shall receive the full range of available public services. Those here on
temporary visas or Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) will be denied any
recourse to public
funds.4 The
whole argument for mass immigration since 1997 has been that it
supposedly sees to our economic
health.5
Either immigrants are supporting our economy, in which case they do not
need benefits, or they are failing to contribute, in which case it is
morally wrong for hard-working British taxpayers to support them.
b) Fiscal Pragmatism. In an ideal world, we
would all have access to the highest quality care and education,
regardless of our ability to pay for them. But we do not live in an
ideal world. Consequently, we should be grateful to private providers of
essential services that not only do good work in their own right, but
relieve pressure on the public provider of those same services.
Precisely in order to free up capacity in public hospitals and state
schools, we will therefore reduce taxes on the use of private health and
private education.
c) Fiscal Responsibility. A country, much
like a household, cannot live beyond its means. In the case of nation
states, of course, it is easier to keep up the illusion that fiscal
profligacy is sustainable with money-printing and bond-purchasing, but
sooner or later these last-ditch methods fail with catastrophic
consequences. Among the major fiscal objectives of a Restore Britain
government, therefore, will be to claw back unproductive forms of excess
expenditure since 2019.
d) Fiscal Accountability. British taxpayers
are entitled not only to know but to shape how their
taxes are spent. For this reason, we would take every single QUANGO
under full ministerial oversight, so that their handsome budgets and the
significant decisions they fund are more subject to scrutiny by the
British people's elected representatives. It is estimated that as many
as 438 QUANGOs took charge of £376 billion of public money in
2023/24.6 Upon
restoring the proper lines of accountability between the government and
the governed, we would review the scope of individual QUANGOs, up to and
including whether their positions should exist at all. Some would be
abolished, most would face significant cuts, and a small number would
have their budgets ringfenced. A future paper will determine which and
why in greater detail.
The question remains: what does the typical British family actually
get for its average £44,000 annual contribution? And are the resulting
services good enough to justify these costs? The idea that we have
suffered immense 'cuts' in recent years is antithetical to reality. We
are not dealing first and foremost with a money problem.
Welfare Budget
If we examine the welfare budget using OBR estimates, we can see
their projected expectations for spending outlined in the chart below.
Currently the state pension (excluding public sector pensions, which
depending on the actuarial assumptions made has a current unfunded
liability of between £1.6-2.2 billion each year) costs £138 billion per
annum while working age benefits cost £159 billion (2024-5). The OBR
estimates these figures will rise to £180 billion and £207 billion
respectively - an increase of £92 billion within 5 years.
Figure 14: UK Welfare Spending out-turn and Forecasts
£bn
|
Outturn 2024-25 |
Est 2025-26 |
2030-31 |
| Welfare cap |
|
|
|
| DWP social security |
137.3 |
148.9 |
185.3 |
| of which: |
|
|
|
| Housing benefit (not on JSA |
14.6 |
12.1 |
13.4 |
| Disability living allowance and personal independence payments |
33.7 |
36.9 |
54.4 |
| Incapacity benefits |
12.4 |
7.2 |
5.2 |
| Attendance allowance |
7.8 |
8.5 |
11.1 |
| Pension credit |
6.0 |
6.1 |
5.8 |
| Carer's allowance |
4.2 |
4.6 |
6.3 |
| Statutory maternity pay |
3.1 |
3.2 |
3.7 |
| Income support (non-incapacity) |
0.3 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
| Winter fuel payment |
0.3 |
1.9 |
2.0 |
| Universal credit |
52.8 |
66.4 |
81.5 |
| Other DWP in welfare cap |
2.0 |
1.9 |
1.9 |
| Child benefit |
13.3 |
13.4 |
14.0 |
| Tax free childcare |
0.6 |
0.6 |
0.6 |
| NI social security in welfare cap |
5.7 |
6.2 |
7.1 |
| Paternity pay |
0.1 |
0.1 |
0.1 |
| Total welfare cap |
158.9 |
169.1 |
207.0 |
| Welfare spending outside the welfare cap |
|
|
|
| DWP social security |
151.9 |
159.3 |
194.4 |
| of which: |
|
|
|
| State pension |
138.0 |
146.2 |
180.7 |
| Jobseeker's allowance |
0.3 |
0.3 |
0.3 |
| Housing benefit (on JSA) |
0.1 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
| Universal credit |
13.5 |
12.9 |
13.4 |
| NI social security outside welfare cap |
4.0 |
4.4 |
5.5 |
| Total welfare |
314.8 |
332.9 |
406.9 |
Source: Office for Budget Responsibility
It is clear that increases of this scale are unsustainable. By
2030-31, the OBR estimates that each and every family will be paying
some £14,500 a year in transfer payments. This is unaffordable and must
be changed.
Our Welfare Measures
The state pension is secure with Restore. However, we will end the
triple lock and instead link the state pension to CPI. Pensioners'
incomes will thus be secure in terms of their purchasing power. Annual
savings from this measure are incremental, but taking long-term wage
growth assumptions it would be reasonable to assume a 2% per annum cost
saving. This would equate to around £2-3.5 billion per annum, but over a
ten year period could build to a saving in the range of £25-30 billion
per annum compound.
As a matter of fairness, public sector pensions should be reformed to
align with those available in the private sector. We would therefore
replace the public sector's 'defined benefit' schemes, which promise a
guaranteed income post-retirement in line with inflation, with 'defined
contribution' schemes that more properly reflect money earned and
investments made over the course of a career.
Working age benefits, currently costing us around £158 billion and
expected to rise to £207 billion by 2030-31, are the primary focus. It
is morally critical that we address the injustice involved in rewarding
indolence more than work, as our current welfare system does. Citizens
with genuine needs will be protected. They have nothing to fear.
Our proposals for access to welfare are threefold.
a) Only British citizens will be entitled to working age benefits.
Going forward, all working age benefits will be frozen at 2025-6 levels
for the lifetime of the Parliament. Since this freezing of benefits
would mirror the freezing of tax allowances, all would shoulder the
burden involved in remedying the adverse effects of historical excess
spending.
b) Access to benefits is a privilege of citizenship, not a universal
right. Existing legal migrants, whether on visas or ILR, will be
entitled to no benefits whatsoever other than A&E care. Funds for
foreign nationals who need them to return home following an end to such
benefits ought to be made available straightaway. This can and should be
done by amending the Immigration Act (1971), s. 115 of the Immigration
and Asylum Act (1999) detailing the terms of exclusion from certain
benefits, and any other statutes that govern the recipience of
welfare.7
c) As we have already made clear in our Mass Deportations:
Legitimacy, Legality, Logistics (2025) paper, illegal migrants
shall not be entitled to any benefits or
services.8
They will be detained and deported.
We estimate that by the end of the first Parliament these measures
will be saving us £8-9 billion per annum from the pension's budget and
around £70-80 billion per annum from the working age benefits
budget.
QUANGO Budget
QUANGOs have multiplied. They are largely unaccountable. The
Taxpayers' Alliance estimates that a staggering 438 QUANGOs spent £391
billion in 2023-4 - 32% of the public sector budget, employing 500,000
people.
We will in future papers outline specific plans, but the following
principles will be applied.
a) QUANGOs should be directly accountable to elected ministers and
taken in house.
b) We shall review the activities of all current QUANGOs, their
evolution of budget and scope over the last 10 years and recommend and
act accordingly
c) In the meantime, we will freeze QUANGO budgets in aggregate over
the lifetime of this Parliament. Some QUANGOs will be abolished and
others significantly scaled back. Where the service is required the
budget will be protected but with direct ministerial oversight. On the
assumption of 2% CPI, this saves £8 billion per annum or £40-5 billion
over the lifetime of a Parliament.
Healthcare
Healthcare will remain free for all citizens at the point of use.
That principle is non-negotiable as far as we are concerned.
Nevertheless, the NHS was founded some 80 years ago and it is time to
review how it operates in the interests of making it as effective as the
British people envisioned in founding it. We will spend much of our time
in the run-up to the next election putting together detailed plans for
how the service will work. For now, let it simply be said that the NHS
in its present ailing form is not fit for purpose.
The NHS budget is out of control. In 2019-20, NHS spending was £164.1
billion. Today it is £241.8 billion. Outcomes are worse. Every
imaginable metric - GP appointments, waiting lists, and expectations of
the number of healthy years tells a story of decline. The system is
manifestly failing and the other parties are in denial.
This failure has nothing whatsoever to do with spending levels. NHS
spending per head is higher than most European countries, at almost
£10,000 per household per year. Yet outcomes are worse than most
European countries in terms of longevity, survival rates, elective care
wait times, GP appointment times, and the like. To be frank, for £10,000
a year per family, the service is nowhere near good enough.
However, state-run healthcare is not doomed to such inefficient
practices. The central determinant of an organisation's efficiency,
whether private or public, is the institutional framework within which
it operates. Effective institutions align internal incentives to
communicate accurate information about success and failure, encourage
innovation, decentralise decision-making to those with the greatest
knowledge, and ensure that resources are continually reallocated towards
their most productive uses. Although these conditions for success
materialise more often in the private sector due to the greater
pressures that come with competition, the public sector need not be any
less successful.
Organisations perform well when their internal incentive structures
reward the creation of value, penalise waste, and continually
communicate accurate information about success and failure. These
conditions arise naturally in competitive markets but they can also be
consciously incorporated into public institutions. Several countries
have demonstrated that this approach can succeed in practice.
Singapore's Temasek Holdings and Norway's Equinor, for example, show
that state-owned enterprises can achieve world-leading performance when
they operate according to commercial principles.
In the NHS this can be achieved by ensuring that decision-making is
decentralised wherever possible. Managers should possess both the
authority to innovate and the responsibility for outcomes, while
organisational structures should reward continual improvement, permit
innovation, and allow successful practices to be replicated. Equally,
ineffective practices should face meaningful consequences rather than
being perpetuated through automatic funding. There are multiple examples
of healthcare systems abroad that offer significantly better care for
lower costs, and so increased funding does not always correlate with
better healthcare.
Restore Britain will announce more detailed plans concerning
healthcare in due course, but the following principles will apply:
a) The NHS will always remain free at the point of need for
citizens.
b) Non-British nationals will be charged at point of use with a
market rate tariff. Ours is a national health service, not an
international one.
c) Emergency care will remain free at the point of use for those in
need.
d) Private health costs will become tax deductible at the marginal
rate of income tax. We estimate this will be fiscally positive in easing
strain on the NHS.
We anticipate making private care tax deductible and charging for
services by non-citizens will save/raise around £20 billion per annum
with maternity benefitting in particular.
Primary and Secondary Education
The education budget has, while growing in real terms, seen a lower
rate of growth than a number of other departments. An education system
centred on academic and vocational excellence is at the heart of our
philosophy. We shall be publishing detailed papers on the structure in
due course but the following fiscal principles shall apply:
a) State education shall remain free at the point of delivery, but
each school shall be independent of state bureaucracy. They will be able
to set their own budgets and priorities.
b) Education is a social good and will be exempt from VAT.
c) School fees in the private sector will become tax deductible at
the marginal rate of income tax. This measure will be fiscally positive
as the saving from reduced roll will be greater than the tax
benefit.
We estimate these measures will save around £10 billion per annum by
the end of the Parliament.
Other Departments
a) All forms of Net Zero expenditure, including subsidies, will
end.9 We
believe this will save government departments at the very least
somewhere in the region of £15-20 billion per annum. It probably climbs
well into the tens of billions. This is before we even consider the fact
that abandoning all of the related transition costs could save the
private sector at least £10-15 billion per annum.
b) With the exceptions of defence, healthcare, and the requirement to
service national debt interest, budgets will be frozen for 3 years,
saving us roughly £3-4 billion per annum.
The Principles Behind Our Tax Proposals
By the end of the first Parliament, we anticipate saving around £178
billion from current public spending, as outlined above. That equates to
around £35 billion per annum compound or around 3% of the budget each
year.
We will match those savings incrementally into tax cuts to stimulate
the economy, enabling families and communities to grow in independence
and strength. The exact choreography of our ambition will be flexible
and dependent on the iron rule of maintaining fiscal stability,
gradually eroding the scale of the annual deficit.
The principles that underpin our tax proposals are as follows:
a) Simplicity and streamlining.
b) Fairness and justice.
c) Transparency and predictability.
d) Targeted at growth and building a resilient private sector.
How Tax is Raised Now
Below outlines the amount of tax and the percentage of the total tax
raised by tax category. Income tax and National insurance contributions
are the most important, accounting for 42.3% of the take, followed by
VAT at 17.8%, then corporation tax at 8.2%. These four taxes account for
just shy of 70% of the entire tax base.
Figure 15: UK Tax raised £bn and % total 2024-5
|
£bn |
% |
| Income tax |
310.3 |
27.2% |
| VAT |
202.7 |
17.8% |
| National Insurance contributions |
171.4 |
15.1% |
| Onshore corporation tax |
93.0 |
8.2% |
| Other public sector taxes |
62.6 |
5.5% |
| Council tax |
47.4 |
4.2% |
| Fuel duties |
24.4 |
2.1% |
| Stamp duty land tax |
15.2 |
1.3% |
| Capital gains tax |
13.7 |
1.2% |
| Alcohol duties |
12.5 |
1.1% |
| Environmental levies |
10.5 |
0.9% |
| Insurance premium tax |
8.9 |
0.8% |
| Vehicle excise duties |
8.4 |
0.7% |
| Inheritance tax |
8.3 |
0.7% |
| Tobacco duties |
7.9 |
0.7% |
| Stamp taxes on shares |
4.3 |
0.4% |
| Air passenger duty |
4.1 |
0.4% |
| Licence fee receipts |
3.8 |
0.3% |
| Emissions trading scheme |
3.4 |
0.3% |
| Energy profits levy |
2.5 |
0.2% |
| Offshore corporation tax |
2.2 |
0.2% |
| Climate change levy |
1.8 |
0.2% |
| Bank levy |
1.3 |
0.1% |
Source: Office for National Statistics
Below we highlight our proposals which will be introduced
incrementally as the budgetary circumstances allow and not before they
are fully funded. Our proposed £155 billion of tax cuts is around £20
billion lower than our anticipated cost savings.
Further, we expect a strong economic multiplier from our proposals as
a result of more rapid growth, greater investment, and increased
confidence. We anticipate our measures would raise our national wealth
by at least 1% of GDP per annum on average, if not more, given the way
in which such changes would act as a magnet for investment, stability,
and prosperity. However, our forecasts have been based on very
conservative assumptions, so we have not modelled this benefit into our
forecasts.
FIGURE 16: Headline Tax Proposals by the end of the first
parliament
|
Proposal |
Annual Cost (£bn) |
| Stamp Duty |
Abolish |
18.2 |
| CGT |
Increase allowance to £40k |
0.7 |
| Inheritance Tax |
Abolish |
8.6 |
| Insurance Premium Tax |
Abolish |
8.9 |
| Air Passenger Duty |
Abolish |
4.1 |
| Emissions Trading |
Abolish |
3.4 |
| Climate Change Levy |
Abolish |
1.3 |
| Corporation Tax |
Lower and raise allowance |
41.3 |
| VAT |
Lower to 18%, raise allowance |
20 |
| Income tax |
Threshold changes |
49.2 |
| Total |
|
155.7 |
Source: Restore
Income Tax: Simplify, treat all fairly, and restore the allowances
that Rishi Sunak and Rachel Reeves have frozen
The chart below shows income tax receipts over time. The substantial
increase in the take in recent years is largely a result of freezing
allowances and accelerating inflation, not underlying real wage
growth.
It is worth examining the depth of Britain's income tax receipts. As
demonstrated below, the top 1% of taxpayers - around 300,000 people
contribute to over a quarter of the entire income tax base, while the
bottom 50% of taxpayers - some 15 million people - contribute to 10% of
that tax base. The system is in this way chronically dependent on the
continuing prosperity of a relatively small number of people.
The chart below highlights the number of tax payers in each income
band, the amount raised in each band, average tax paid by each
individual in each band, and their implied marginal tax rate.
Figure 19: Income Tax by Income Band (2025-26 HMRC
Estimates)
| Annual Income Band (Lower Limit) |
Income Taxpayers (000s) |
Total Income Tax Raised (£m) |
Average Income Tax per Taxpayer (£) |
Average Income Tax Rate (%) |
| £12,570 |
2,760 |
631 |
229 |
1.7% |
| £15,000 |
5,490 |
4,710 |
859 |
4.9% |
| £20,000 |
10,200 |
23,000 |
2,260 |
9.1% |
| £30,000 |
11,900 |
57,200 |
4,810 |
12.5% |
| £50,000 |
6,850 |
85,600 |
12,500 |
18.9% |
| £100,000 |
1,120 |
39,000 |
35,000 |
29.4% |
| £150,000 |
366 |
21,400 |
58,400 |
34.1% |
| £200,000 |
375 |
40,700 |
109,000 |
38% |
| £500,000 |
62 |
17,100 |
276,000 |
40.8% |
| £1,000,000 |
21 |
11,400 |
555,000 |
40.9% |
| £2,000,000+ |
11 |
22,400 |
2,120,000 |
39.6% |
Source: ONS
The current bands for England and Northern Ireland (Wales and
Scotland have separate income tax regimes) are set out below. It should
be noted that allowance bands have been frozen since April 2021. CPI has
risen by 27% since then thus the real value of allowances has fallen
significantly.
Figure 20: Current UK Income Tax bands and allowances (bands
frozen since April 21)
|
Band to |
£ |
Rate |
| Personal Allowance |
0 |
12570 |
0% |
| Basic Rate |
12571 |
50270 |
20% |
| Higher rate |
50271 |
125140 |
40% |
| Additional rate |
125141 |
|
45% |
Source ONS
We propose to make work pay.
a) We will increase the threshold before income tax is liable from
£12,571 to £16,000.
b) We propose to increase the 20% rate from £50,271 to £100,000.
c) Leave the higher tax bands unaltered in the first Parliament.
d) Create tax equality - all receive zero band to £16,000.
Our proposals to make income tax fairer will cost around £50
billion.
Figure 21: Income Tax estimated cost of proposed
measures
| Measure |
cost (£bn) |
| Increase threshold before tax from £12579 to £16k |
24.7 |
| Raise 40% allowance from £50270 to £100k |
19.6 |
| Restore tax-free threshold to all taxpayers |
4.9 |
| Cost of measures |
49.2 |
Corporation Tax: Regain our competitiveness and encourage
enterprise
Until recently, our 19% corporation tax rate put us in a reasonably
competitive tax position. This was greatly undermined in 2023 with the
introduction of a 25% band for companies with profits exceeding
£250,000. The chart below shows the recent history of the tax rate.
If we compare the current 25% rate in Britain with our most relevant
European competitors, we see that our competitive advantage has
disappeared, with Ireland and Switzerland in particular now
significantly undercutting us. Ireland raised €33 billion in corporation
tax last year. Despite the fact that Ireland's population is less than
8% the size of ours, this €33 billion figure means it raised as high as
33% of our corporation tax take. This is Ireland's reward for having the
good sense to make economic life attractive to companies where we have
made it difficult. We would seek to regain our competitive advantage
and, in time, become the most attractive place in Europe in which to
invest and do business.
Current make up of Corporation Tax receipts are as follows. Outside
Corporation Tax there are numerous smaller corporate complications, from
banking to energy levies. In time these will be simplified and
abolished.
Figure 24: UK Corporation Tax by type £m
| Corporate Tax receipts by tax type |
2023-24 |
2024-25 |
| Onshore Corporation Tax (excluding BL, BS, RPDT, EGL) |
82,686 |
89,197 |
| Offshore Corporation Tax (excluding EPL) |
2,951 |
1,962 |
| Total onshore and offshore Corporation Tax |
85,637 |
91,159 |
| Bank Levy (BL) |
1,428 |
1,320 |
| Bank Surcharge (BS) |
1,446 |
974 |
| Residential Property Developer Tax (RPDT) |
103 |
102 |
| Energy Profits Levy (EPL) |
3,587 |
2,857 |
| Electricity Generator Levy (EGL) |
1,473 |
749 |
| All Corporate Taxes |
93,675 |
97,161 |
Source: Office for National Statistics
What is critical, as is outlined over the next two charts, is that
this tax is overwhelmingly paid by a relatively small number of large
firms, with 61% of the tax raised by companies generating over £1
million of profit.
Figure 25: Tax liability £ by band and percentage of total
take
| Total tax liability per band |
2023-24 |
%take |
| >0-100 |
3 |
0.0% |
| >100-500 |
38 |
0.0% |
| >500-1,000 |
80 |
0.1% |
| >1,000-5,000 |
1,204 |
1.4% |
| >5,000-10,000 |
1,979 |
2.4% |
| >10,000-50,000 |
8,919 |
10.7% |
| >50,000-100,000 |
4,733 |
5.7% |
| >100,000-500,000 |
10,833 |
13.0% |
| >500,000-1m |
4,345 |
5.2% |
| >1m-5m |
10,537 |
12.7% |
| >5m-10m |
5,163 |
6.2% |
| >10m-50m |
13,888 |
16.7% |
| >50m |
21,436 |
25.8% |
Source: Office for National Statistics
As outlined below, the vast majority of firms pay little to no
corporation tax. Only 4% of corporates register profits over £50,000
while just 0.4% of companies make over £500,000 a year.
Figure 26: Number of companies per CT band
| Number of companies per band |
2023-24 |
%take |
| 0 |
1,623,195 |
50.6% |
| >0-100 |
80,580 |
2.5% |
| >100-500 |
134,085 |
4.2% |
| >500-1,000 |
108,900 |
3.4% |
| >1,000-5,000 |
443,885 |
13.8% |
| >5,000-10,000 |
273,105 |
8.5% |
| >10,000-50,000 |
407,370 |
12.7% |
| >50,000-100,000 |
68,040 |
2.1% |
| >100,000-500,000 |
54,090 |
1.7% |
| >500,000-1m |
6,285 |
0.2% |
| >1m-5m |
5,205 |
0.2% |
| >5m-10m |
745 |
0.0% |
| >10m-50m |
660 |
0.0% |
| >50m |
170 |
0.0% |
Source: Office for National Statistics
We propose a major overhaul. We would abolish Corporation Tax on the
first £50,000 of profits for all companies. This takes 95% of all
companies outside the corporation tax regime. With profits over £50,000
we propose an immediate restoration of the 19% rate, with an aspiration
to reduce this to 15% as soon as fiscal conditions allow.
In time we will abolish the Bank Levy, Bank Surcharge, Residential
Property Developer Tax, Energy Profits Levy, and Electricity Generator
Levy. The OBR estimates that Corporation Tax will raise £96.7 billion in
2025/26 under the current regime. We estimate the cost to the Exchequer
of increasing the threshold before corporation tax is paid and restoring
the 19% rate to be around £24 billion, with an additional £4 billion
cost for each additional percentage point's worth of decline. These
estimates are before any growth multiplier.
Overall, we will be friendly to honest companies, not slavish to
global business.
Inheritance Tax: Many countries have a nil rate; so should we
Inheritance tax (IHT) should be abolished in its
entirety.10
The tax is incompatible with the healthy and natural desire of
individuals to provide for future generations. Families do not
accumulate wealth solely for their own benefit, but to improve the
prospects of their children and grandchildren through the transfer of
homes, businesses, savings, and other productive assets. The ability to
build upon the achievements of previous generations is one of the
principal mechanisms through which families attain greater prosperity.
By confiscating a portion of these lawfully acquired assets, the state
weakens the family as an economic institution and needlessly penalises
long-term responsibility.
Assets transferred upon death do not constitute newly created income,
but rather a transfer of wealth that was already accumulated through
taxed earnings. Subjecting these assets to further taxation constitutes
an additional expropriation of legitimately acquired private property
and undermines one of the most fundamental rights in a free society: the
right of individuals to determine the disposition of their lawfully
acquired assets.
The tax is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of private
property, voluntary exchange, and capital accumulation upon which any
prosperous economy depends. A Restore Britain government would recognise
that capital accumulation is the indispensable foundation of sustained
economic growth. The abolition of IHT would therefore strengthen
incentives for long-term saving, increase domestic capital formation,
reinforce the security of private property rights, and improve the
intergenerational transmission of productive assets.
Family-owned businesses would be able to plan investment over longer
time horizons without the risk of forced asset disposals, while
entrepreneurs would retain greater confidence that the capital they
accumulate could be transferred intact to their chosen successors.
Family farms and businesses in particular are the backbone of our
economy and communities, ensuring long-run investment and national
resilience into the future.
Over time, these reforms would contribute to higher levels of
investment, greater labour productivity, increased real wages, and
stronger long-run economic growth. The role of the state is to uphold
the legal institutions that enable wealth to be created, preserved, and
productively deployed across generations, not that of a graverobber. The
£8.7 billion cost of the abolition of IHT is therefore easy to justify
because the compounding economic benefits easily outweigh the loss of
revenue.
The chart below outlines the tax take from IHT since 1999-2000.
Capital Gains Tax (CGT) - Increase the allowance materially
For non-residential property, gains are taxed at a basic rate of 18%
and a top rate of 24%. The major issue here is that allowances have been
dramatically reduced over the last 20 years. Indeed, if the £10,100
tax-free limit had been indexed since 2008-9, the current allowance
would stand at over £16,000. We propose to keep non-residential and
residential rates unchanged, but raise the tax-free allowance to £20,000
per annum. This will cost the Exchequer around £700 million per
annum.
Figure 29: UK CGT regime on non-residential
property
Source: Office for National Statistics
|
Basic |
Top |
Allowance |
| 2008-09 |
18% |
|
10100 |
| 2009-10 |
18% |
|
10100 |
| 2010-11 |
18% |
28% |
10100 |
| 2011-12 |
18% |
28% |
10100 |
| 2012-13 |
18% |
28% |
10600 |
| 2013-14 |
18% |
28% |
10600 |
| 2014-15 |
18% |
28% |
10600 |
| 2015-16 |
18% |
28% |
11100 |
| 2016-17 |
10% |
20% |
11100 |
| 2017-18 |
10% |
20% |
11300 |
| 2018-19 |
10% |
20% |
11300 |
| 2019-20 |
10% |
20% |
12000 |
| 2020-21 |
10% |
20% |
12300 |
| 2021-22 |
10% |
20% |
12300 |
| 2022-23 |
10% |
20% |
12300 |
| 2023-24 |
10% |
20% |
12300 |
| 2024-25 |
18% |
24% |
6000 |
| 2025-26 |
18% |
24% |
3000 |
The history of CGT receipts is outlined below.
As a reference, the split by band of tax received for 2022-23 is
below.
Figure 31: CGT payable, by band. Thousands in band and amount
raise in band £m 2022-3
| Range of gain (Lower limit £) |
Number of individuals |
Total amounts of tax |
| 0 |
3 |
16 |
| 10,000 |
108 |
115 |
| 25,000 |
93 |
433 |
| 50,000 |
68 |
851 |
| 100,000 |
46 |
1,359 |
| 250,000 |
16 |
1,022 |
| 500,000 |
9 |
1,127 |
| 1,000,000 |
6 |
1,396 |
| 2,000,000 |
4 |
2,298 |
| 5,000,000 |
2 |
6,037 |
| All |
355 |
14,653 |
Source: Restore Britain
VAT: Raise the threshold, start to reduce the tax
In 2025-26, we estimate that VAT will raise £180 billion. That
represents 14.6% of tax receipts.
VAT is levied on the purchase of many goods and services. It is
levied on the amount of value added at each stage of the production
chain. The standard rate of VAT is 20%, with around half of household
expenditure subject to this rate. The reduced rate is 5% and is applied
to domestic fuel and power, as well as some other
goods.11
Around 2.5% of expenditure is taxed at this reduced rate. Other goods
and services - such as books, newspapers, children's clothing, and most
foods - attract a zero rate.
Below we detail the amount of money the current VAT regime
raises.
Our guiding aims here are twofold.
First, we aspire to reduce the rate at which the tax is applied, with
a target of lowering it to 18% by the end of the first Parliament. This
will cost the Exchequer around £18 billion.
Second, we aspire to raise the threshold at which VAT is applied from
£90,000 to £150,000, largely with an eye to supporting small businesses.
This could potentially cost the Exchequer £1.9 billion, although the
underlying hit to the public finances would in all likelihood be much
weaker due to increased small company activity.
We view it as a critical plank of our policy to support small
businesses.
Small Taxes: Simplify and abolish
As part of simplifying our needlessly complex tax system, it is
worthwhile to reconsider some of the smaller and often arbitrary taxes
that push up the cost of living. There are a range of small taxes that
act as an impediment to business, including Insurance Premium Tax (£8.9
billion), Air passenger Duty (£4.1 billion), Emissions Trading Scheme
(£3.4 billion), and the Climate Change Levy (£1.3 billion). We intend to
abolish these during the life of the Parliament.
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of
ignorance, and the gospel of envy .
Winston Churchill (A speech in Perth, Scotland, on 28 May,
1948)
