Hunt to claim only Tories will cut UK tax burden after the election

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Jeremy Hunt will on Friday defend large-scale Conservative tax rises during this parliament, but insist that only his party will cut the tax burden if it wins the next general election.

The chancellor will argue that a Tory promise to cut taxes will be a major dividing line at the election, even though the overall tax load has risen to postwar highs under his party.

“Labour like to criticise tax rises this parliament thinking people don’t know why they have gone up — the furlough scheme, the energy price guarantee and billions of pounds of cost of living support,” Hunt will say.

Hunt’s speech in central London comes ahead of the release next week of official inflation data that the chancellor hopes will show inflation falling below the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target.

He sees this as a key moment for the economy. The Tories are trailing Labour by 20 percentage points in opinion polls and have worse ratings on the economy than Sir Keir Starmer’s party.

Hunt’s speech marks the opening skirmishes between the two main parties on the economy ahead of an election expected this autumn. On Thursday, Labour said creating “economic stability” would be its first priority if it wins.

The chancellor will claim Labour attacks on his party’s tax-raising record were “playground politics”, noting Starmer’s party had supported policies to help the UK through a series of economic shocks.

Despite recent cuts to national insurance, the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank has said “this remains a parliament of record tax rises”.

Meanwhile, Hunt on Thursday convened technology groups and regulators in an attempt to identify ways of making the country more attractive to the high-growth industry.

He hosted a summit at his grace-and-favour Dorneywood estate in Buckinghamshire to canvas executives’ views on what the government could do to retain tech groups in the UK and help them to grow.

One person at the summit said it was “very positive” and that a number of people stated they were planning to have initial public offerings in London.

However, the Treasury declined to say how many companies attended the event or provide names.

Some major companies — including Revolut, Klarna, Checkout.com and ClearScore — did not attend. The chief executive of one large tech group said he had not known the Dorneywood summit was being held.

Industry figures attending included Monzo boss TS Anil and Eben Upton, chief executive of Raspberry Pi, the computer maker on which hopes for a reopening of the London IPO market are pinned.

The Cambridge-based company said on Wednesday that it would seek a listing on the London Stock Exchange’s main market. It was valued at $597mn in November. 

The Treasury said the summit “focused on the offer that the UK has for innovative firms wanting to raise capital in the UK”.

One person at the meeting said tech bosses had challenged Nikhil Rathi, boss of the Financial Conduct Authority, to provide “clarity and certainty” on future regulation and to take a more “pro-growth” approach.

The UK has a record of developing more start-ups than other European countries but Hunt is attempting to overhaul London’s stock market rules to encourage more companies to grow and list in the country.

He said this week he believed the reforms could help to produce a “British Microsoft” worth $1tn.