Howard to speak on Tory tax cuts
Michael Howard, Tory shadow chancellor, will speak before his party’s annual conference in Blackpool today on the Opposition’s pledge to uphold a “fair deal for taxpayers.”
At 15.10BST on day three of the conference, Mr Howard is expected to quash rumours over the apparent schism at the heart of the party over the commitment to being a “lower tax government.”
Leader Iain Duncan Smith abides with the proposition but Mr Howard gave a less than wholehearted affirmation of traditional Tory economic policy at the weekend.
Mr Howard gave lukewarn backing to automatic tax cuts under a future Tory administration.
On Saturday, he said: “I want to cut taxes, I plan to cut taxes, I hope to cut taxes. I can’t yet make any firm commitment, partly because we haven’t completed our work and partly because we don’t know the state of the economy at the time of the election, we don’t know for example how much Gordon Brown will be borrowing.
‘We will certainly be a lower tax party than Labour- there is no doubt about that. Labour will carry on increasing taxes and we won’t do that and we hope to cut taxes,” he said.
Yesterday, Mr Duncan Smith said his party would cut taxes in conjunction with excising masses of costly Government-inspired bureaucratic inefficiency.
Mr Duncan Smith said his party would give taxpayers a fair deal, but his party wouldn’t squander money raised through tax revenues to improve our public services.
“What we’re planning to do is to cut taxes by cutting waste and bureaucracy. Those who think somehow that there is some strange choice here between either taxing the British people endlessly, breaking the economy, destroying their likelihood of having enough money to improve the quality of their lives, that has some moral purpose?”
Deputy leader David Davis also said Conservatives should be unafraid of cutting taxes.
Seemingly at odds with Mr Howard’s stance, he said: “Conservatives are not afraid to say that the way we’ve organised public services for 60 years is fundamentally flawed. We’re not afraid to say that if we want to give people genuine choice and opportunity, we have to tax them less and set them free.”
Mr Davis reiterated Mr Duncan Smith’s mantra that Labour had implemented no fewer than 60 tax rises since 1997.
Fairness will be the theme of the day at conference. David Willets today will speak on a fair deal for pensioners and savers and Tim Yeo will discuss Tory policy on a fair deal for business and enterprise.
