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Minister admits Labour will raise tax ... if it wins election
Nicholas Cecil, Chief Political Correspondent11.06.09
Labour may increase taxes again if it wins the next election, Treasury minister Liam Byrne signalled today.
The new Chief Secretary to the Treasury stressed that difficult decisions would need to be made on taxes and spending to get the public finances back in order.
"Alistair Darling has been really clear that there are going to be some pretty tough choices to be made," he said.
"There are going to be conditions of constraint and there are going to be difficult decisions on, for example, tax."
He emphasised that the Government had already decided to raise taxes on the rich.
"We think that the people who have done best over the last few years should pay a little bit extra tax," Mr Byrne added.
After accusing the Tories of unfunded tax promises, including on the inheritance levy, he added: "Unfortunately, if you are careless on tax, you end up cruel on spending."
He continued to defend the line that public spending would not be cut by Labour, though he all but admitted that capital spending would be reduced.
"Once you have built a school you have got a school," he said, adding that capital spending would move to one and a quarter per cent of GDP.
Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Philip Hammond accused Labour of being disingenuous about public spending, stressing that departmental expenditure would have to be cut.
He admitted that "something had to give" to restore the public finances to health.
Mr Byrne's intervention draws clear battle lines between Labour and the Tories for the next election.
Labour will seek to portray Tory leader David Cameron as preparing to wield the axe and slash public spending while insisting that they will not be so brutal.
However, taxes could rise further if Gordon Brown wins another term for Labour.
The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned of a £45billion black hole in the public finances that needs to be filled.
Reader views (23)
Labour has already trebled taxation by stealth taxes while claiming it would not or hah not raised taxes.
Why would we trust them after yet another election. Blair and Brown never did honesty they just bragged they were.
The more Brown blusters the less trustworthy he becomes!
- Barry, Wales
I guess a few people have been out the country for the past 18 months. Why is this news? The village idiot Brown has squandered billions saving his mates in the Scottish banking sector. Where did you think the money was coming from?
If you can not work that our the perhaps you should leave.
- Ge, Kernow
Tax me more and its goodbye from me and goodbye from him - we wont be here to be taxed any more - why should we pay more for your second homes! We need a root and branch reform of the public sector and look at how our money is spent (and too often wasted). Start with MPs - halve the number, change the retirement age for all public sector wookers to 65, cut back the telephone number compenstaion awards paid by the public sector, etc.
- Jeremy E, Home Counties
it matters little what labour promise or threaten they are yesterdays people, pathetic ghosts that will haunt the black back pages of history with all the empty promises made over the years that let to economic, political and social disaster, whilst they all made many a fast buck from corrupt and deceitful shenanigans.
not that the blue shower will be any the better.
a casual glance at history will show that no political elite, or government has ever done anything but muddy the water, plaster over the cracks and take the money and run. do we need these snake oil sales people with their empty promises of jam tomorrow and a walk down the yellow brick road into a non existent rosy dawn?
- M.O'Brien, london.uk
I cannot wait for these Nu Labor idiots to be going.
- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London
The Nasty evil facist BNP stand more chance of "IF" they get in. Labour are a sunken paddle boat in the middle of a duck pond. Yelling for help and everyone ignores them.
- Geri, London
"A little bit more tax"....like, a 10% addition to the 40%. High earners pay more tax already, the more they earn, the more tax they pay.
- Andyr, St Ives, Cambs
Here, hang on a minute, my taxes are high enough thanks to nu Liebour.
Why don't they look at saving money from the scroungers who over breed, and charging them some rent and council tax and taxing their benefits. As for the workshy idlers, stop their benefits altogether, let them support themselves. They can also take a good look at the thousands of alchoholics and drug takers do something about them too.
- Mrs, London UK
All you posters saying labour will never win the next election - I sincerely hope you're right as I loathe brown, mandy and the whole lot of them as much as anyone. But I've got a queasy feeling about this. The Tories lead is a bit soft, their vote is squeezed by Ukip and if the economy turns at just the right time....!
Never underestimate the stupidity of the electorate!
- Chris, Brighton, England
Let's not forget, somebody voted this lot in in 1997, yet its very difficult to find anyone who will admit to having done so. Labour ALWAYS raise taxes. If your pension has been raided, or if more and more of your wages disappear in tax and national insurance, don't blame Labour if you voted them in, blame yourself.
- George, London
It's blindingly obvious that public services have to be cut and taxes raised. If that doesn't happen the country will be bankrupt a few years from now. Any politician who denies this is a liar or an idiot or both. Anyone who believes him is a bigger idiot.
- Nigel, London
There are huge areas in the public sector that could be cut without anyone even noticing it. Large numbers of pen pushers, paper shufflers and politically correct non jobs have blossomed under Brown and Blair and have to go. Over 50% of the quangos do little or nothing of value. Only the Tories will deal with this, Labour won't even admit it so don't count on them to axe it. The taxpayers are sick of forking out for now't. Brown will go now or later and then we maybe will get some sense.
- John Keating, romsey hampshire uk
WHICHEVER party wins the next election they will cut public spending and raise taxes - don't believe any politician that says otherwise. The choice will be which taxes and which part of the population should pay the taxes.
The Conservatives have still not made their economic policy public yet. However, Cameron keeps referring to the works of a discredited economist (even right of centre, free market economists do not support this economist) - which is along the lines of ...don't tax the rich as their money will filter down into the economy naturally, only tax the middle & lower income earners. Don't say you haven't been warned particularly when the rich move their money off shore and it doesn't filter down!
With regard to the type of tax to be increased - income tax increases are the fairest and VAT is the unfairest (NI being somewhere in the middle).
Red, yellow, blue, purple or green taxes are going up and spending is going down - something to really look forward to.
- Andy, london
These idiots are wasting their time......
THEY WILL NOT WIN ANY ELECTIONS!
On second thoughts, they probably have little else to do:
Blind NuLiebor actionism as usual.
- Weddigen, London SW3
The public simply won't stand for further taxation. Taxes have consitently gone up under Labour yet improvements in public service are hard to identify. The problem is that the government is bloated and hugely inefficient and it must simply be reigned in so that the money that is available is spend on essential services. Billions have been thrown away on useless ID cards, computer systems that don't work and new government buildings that at recent levels costs about 4 times more than the most expensive private sector offices. Time they put a check on spending rather than expecting the public to bail out their mismanagement of the public finances
- Ag, London Village
What air are labour breathing? Unless Paul Mckenna becomes party leader and makes everyone forget the last three years Labout are dead in the water.
- Ge, Kernow
These 'simple idiots' have not yet realised that there are no profits left to tax. So the only way in which to raise taxes is to tax the public sector because they will be the only people working and earning enough. They because their jobs are 'bomb proof' will go on strike for more money and then there will be even less profits and an ever rapidly diminishing private sector !! Got it Gordon 'Socialist out of control spending does not work'. Only in Scotland where 60% of the work force is in the public sector does the system add up and that is because the UK Tax Revenue allows the gap between spending and taxation (Barnett Formula) to be met. That is why Labour will always support the union. The large number of Labour MP's from Scotland could not do without the union. A fine example is The Speaker who has shown what Scottish Trade Unionism is all about 'snouts in the trough'. Got it Gordon !!!
- Nick Holland, glasgow
I have a better chance of walking on the moon than Labour winning the next election, or the one after that! They are a bunch of theiving corrupt traitors that should all be prosecuted when the new government is in place.
- Dirk Diggler, Soho, London
Why aren't the press getting as heated about this "honesty" as they did about the Tories announcing what everyone knows (and wants) i.e. that public spending should be cut?
If this story is true - and it misses the crucial point that Labour will NOT win the next general election - then it signals that Brown and Co have no intention of reigning in their suicidal spending tendencies. They would rather tax the working population than reduce the mismanagement, bureaucracy and duplication that blights UK public services.
- Simon Mills, Perth, the Scottish one
Labour will not win the next election so taxes wont be going up. Who would vote for that in anycase?
They will not receive the same level of drubbing as in the local and Euro elections - their traditional voters return from their protests votes for UKIP and BNP. But they will be out for a generation, just as they were before '97.
Bring on the election.
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke
This gives the impression Byrne answered the questions asked. He was actually like an eel in a bucket of oil. I wouldn't trust him and his masters as far as I could throw them, which is not too far considering how slippery they all are.
- Paul Freeman, London, England
I wouldn't worry too much about it. "Freezing over" and "hell" spring to mind when you suggest Labour might win the next election - if they ever hold one.
- Marianne, SW France/London
MORE SPIN AND WAFFLE.
THE UK IS BANKRUPT.
"IF LABOUR WIN THE NEXT ELECTION". DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH.
GORMLESS BROWN HASN'T GOT A CAT-IN-HELL'S CHANCE OF WINNING ANTHING. HE IS FINISHED.
IT WILL TAKE THE NEXT 30 YEARS TO CLEAR THE DEBT RACKED UP BY THIS LOUSY LABOUR GOVERNMENT.
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe UK
