'We would rather they not do this type of tax cuts.'
Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been warned by the International Monetary Fund not to cut taxes any time soon, ahead of the March budget and a general election expected later this year.
Hunt and the rest of the Tory government have placed tax cuts at the heart of their election campaign, in a bid to win over voters as Tory support continues to plummet in the polls.
However, the IMF, which brings together 190 member countries and works towards trying to achieve sustainable growth and prosperity, has warned Hunt against the tax cuts which it says would mean less money for spending on vital services such as the NHS.
The Mirror reports: “IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said of the UK Government: “We would rather they not do this type of tax cuts.” He said ministers “might think of spending on healthcare and modernising the NHS; spending on social care; on education; you might think about critical public investment to address the climate transition; but also to boost growth.”
In a major blow to Sunak, the IMF has also further downgraded UK growth projections, with the country’s growth in 2024 projected to sit at 0.6%, an unchanged figure, with only Germany performing worse. UK growth projections have also been downgraded for 2025 by 0.4% to a total of 1.6%.
Criticism from the IMF also comes at a time when a poll earlier this month showed that UK voters would rather the government prioritise spending on public services, which have been decimated and left crumbling after 13 years of Tory austerity, rather than prioritising tax cuts, in a fresh blow to Rishi Sunak.
The findings were made in a survey of 2,065 adults carried out by the political consultancy Global Counsel in December, which found that ‘almost two thirds of Britons think any available fiscal headroom should be used to improve schools and hospitals, compared to just over a quarter who say it should go toward cutting income tax’.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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