SILVERSTONE: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to cut 17 billion pounds ($21.7 billion) of taxes for working people if re-elected, in a final throw of the dice to overturn polls that put him on course for a heavy defeat in Britain's July 4 election.
With his Conservative Party consistently about 20 points behind Keir Starmer's opposition Labour in the polls, Sunak made a new appeal on Tuesday to what one Conservative lawmaker described as Britain's carpenters, bricklayers and electricians, by promising further tax cuts if they give him their vote.
The party manifesto aims to put tax cuts at the heart of the campaign, with Sunak's team believing that the move will put pressure on Labour, traditionally seen as the party of tax and spend. Starmer has said his party will not lift the main taxes.
Sunak, a 44-year-old former investment banker, acknowledged that people were frustrated with him and his party after 14 years of power, dominated at times by political turmoil and scandal, during which many have struggled to make ends meet.
Sunak argued that the economy was finally recovering and if re-elected he would cut payroll taxes for workers to reignite economic growth further.
"I'm not blind to the fact that people are frustrated with our party and frustrated with me," he said at the launch of the Conservatives' manifesto, setting out its future policy pledges.
"Things have not always been easy, and we have not got everything right, but we are the only party in this election with the big ideas to make our country a better place to live."
Under the plan launched on Tuesday at the Formula One racetrack Silverstone in central England, where U.S. actor Brad Pitt was filming, Sunak said taxes would be cut by 17.2 billion pounds a year by 2029/30.
That will be funded by an annual 12-billion-pound cut to welfare spending and 6 billion pounds a year of savings by tackling tax avoidance and evasion.
The biggest tax cut - accounting for 10 billion pounds of the 17-billion-pound reduction planned - is a 2-percentage-point cut in the rate of National Insurance paid by employees, which will take effect by April 2027. — Reuters
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