‘Tax and spend will harm Tories’
Truss warns Cabinet colleagues that demands for more public cash will cost the party votes
A SENIOR minister today attacks her Cabinet colleagues’ demands for “unsustainable” budget increases as she warns a tax-and-spend policy would see the Tories “crushed” at the polls.
Liz Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, believes fellow Cabinet ministers should admit that “un-conservative” spending sprees would lead to “higher and higher taxes”. Her comments are squarely aimed at Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, who reportedly said that he could “break” the Prime Minister if he was not given a bigger defence budget.
Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, has also asked for a bigger budget, and Ms Truss also turned her guns on Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, by saying that Brexit should liberate people, rather than “banning things like wood-burning stoves”.
Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph ahead of a speech on public finances tonight, Ms Truss warns that higher taxes would be a “complete contradiction of the Brexit vote” because voters were led to believe that leaving the EU would free up more money for public services, not leave them personally out of pocket. Her intervention is the clearest evidence to date of the tensions at the heart of Government over funding for stretched public services after years of austerity.
According to friends, she believes the Tories will be soundly beaten at the next election if the tax burden on young voters is increased, and is “staggered” that colleagues could disagree.
Ms Truss makes it clear that £20billion a year in extra spending for the NHS announced by Theresa May this month is the fulfilment of a long-standing commitment rather than the beginning of a Government-wide spending spree. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor and Ms Truss’s boss, is reported to have told the Cabinet that the extra money for the NHS meant other departments would have to tighten their belts.
Ms Truss says that with £29,000 per household currently spent on public services, “my instinct is we can get better value for money for that spending, rather than just upping the budget of every department.
“Government has a responsibility to its people to balance the books and keep taxes as low as we possibly can. We have a responsibility to make sure every pound pulls its weight”.
Ms Truss will say in a speech at the London School of Economics tonight that her colleagues have “not been clear with the public about the tax implications of their proposed higher spending”.
Cabinet ministers are demanding “unsustainable, unaffordable and unconservative public spending increases”, she believes, and she tells colleagues that “it’s not macho to demand more money”. She says: “It’s much tougher – and fairer to people – to demand better value for money.”
Turning to Brexit, she says: “The public will find it unforgivable and a betrayal of Brexit if… we impose higher and higher taxes on them, taking away the control they have over their money.
“This is a complete contradiction of the Brexit vote... the more government spends, the higher taxes have to be. And that means businesses and people have less freedom to spend on their own priorities. And that in turn will hamper the success of post-brexit Britain.”
Friends of Ms Truss said: “Liz knows she has a fight on her hands. But she thinks the party will be crushed at the polls if millions of younger people have to cough up more cash in taxes for services they don’t use. She’s staggered that others don’t see this.”
Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-mogg said on LBC radio that rises were not “necessary”, there was “no room” for them to be increased and that breaking a manifesto promise to keep tax low would prompt voters to “boot out” the Tories.