Budget fires starting gun on living standards and ending unfair tax advantages - but must be first shot in war on bills, says IPPR

Responding to the Budget, Harry Quilter-Pinner, executive director at IPPR, said:  

“The Chancellor has made good calls on gambling tax, taxing income from wealth and work more equally, a tax on high value properties and ending the two-child limit, which will pull 450,000 children out of poverty. She has also protected vital services from cuts and more than doubled fiscal headroom against her fiscal rules and cut bills, as IPPR has urged.

“She faced a challenging fiscal context. On the back of an OBR downgrade, the government needed to stabilise public finances, drive higher and fairer economic growth, relieve pressure on working families, all while raising revenues to protect public services. This Budget made real progress towards achieving these goals.

“But after a decade of wage stagnation the move to cut energy bills must be just the start of action to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. We need a relentless war on bills if working people are to feel better by the end of the parliament.”  

Many of IPPR’s recommendations were adopted by Rachel Reeves, including:

• Scrapping the two-child limit
• Increasing taxes on gambling companies
• Giving mayors and local leaders the power to bring in visitor levies
• Taxing income from wealth (eg rental income) at rates more in line with income from work
• Starting to wage a war on bills by cutting energy bills
• Increasing fiscal headroom
• Reforming property taxation by raising tax on the most expensive houses
• No spending cuts, to protect public services