Reverse, not slow, the cuts!

Submitted by AWL on 18 March, 2015 - 12:14 Author: Gerry Bates

Solidarity went to press before George Osborne's pre-election Budget on 18 March. All the signs were that Osborne would follow up his 3 December autumn statement with a few tax cuts, mainly for the well-off.

The autumn statement projected further social cuts estimated by the conservative Institute for Fiscal Studies to total £55 billion over the next five years, more than the £35 billion slashed since 2010.

Osborne has already said he wants £12 billion further welfare cuts.

He has already trailed a plan (not as a Budget measure, but as an election promise) to exempt many well-off people from inheritance tax.

In the Budget he will give five million better-off pensioners the right to cash in their pension funds. He will announce plans to cut business rates, and probably an increase in the threshold at which income tax becomes payable.

So far Labour's leaders are only promising slower, milder cuts. The unions should use their clout in the Labour Party to demand taxes on the rich and reversal of cuts.

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