Chancellor Rishi Sunak refuses to rule out future tax hikes
4 October 2021, 09:50
Chancellor refuses to be drawn on future tax hikes
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has insisted the Government is dealing with taxation in a "fair way" but refused to be drawn on future tax hikes.
Speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari, live at the Conservative Party conference, Mr Sunak said: "I think it is entirely Conservative to manage the nation's public finances responsibly and make sure things add up. Remember, we've suffered the biggest economic shock in 300 years.
"Now obviously that's had an impact and, given that we've got commitments that we want want to make - whether it's on the NHS, whether it's more police officers, whether it's levelling up around the country - we want to make sure we can deliver on those, which is why we've taken these decisions, but we've been upfront with people about it and why we're doing it, doing it in what I believe to be a fair way."
When pushed about possible future tax rises or reductions, the Chancellor said: "I never can comment about future tax policy, but, as I said, we've taken the decisions we have in order to do some very specific things that I think people would want us to do, to make sure the NHS can recover from the backlog, to reform social care, and I think people will acknowledge... look, we have experienced this once in a hopefully 300-year economic shock and that's going to have an impact."
