Conservatives give analysis of Government’s tax and spending plans. Harriett Baldwin, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for West Worcestershire has this week published Conservative research on this week’s Budget, which sets out the Labour Government’s plans for taxes and public spending. Harriett Baldwin voiced her concern at the big tax rises concealed in the small print and the lack of a credible plan to deal with the massive level of public debt.

• Income tax will increase by stealth for 30 million people, since both the basic and higher rate thresholds have been frozen. This will mean £96 a year more for a couple who both work. A single pensioner on an average income will be more than £110 worse off as a result of Labour’s tax grabs.
• National Insurance will be hiked for workers and for firms. This jobs tax will discourage businesses from hiring staff, cut people’s pay packets, and mean anyone earning £20,000 a year or more will be worse off.
• Duties on alcohol will rise by above inflation yet again. A new cider tax, in the form of a massive ten per cent rise in duties on all cider, will punish responsible drinkers and harm apple growes in West Worcestershire.
• Inheritance tax will rise by stealth, due to the decision to freeze thresholds at £325,000 for four years. This will mean more and more homes will be caught in the inheritance tax net. The burden of stamp duty is also rising.
• Anyone with a fixed telephone line will have to pay for a new yearly phone tax.
• Business rates will rise by £1 billion for local businesses across the country; a business rates revaluation will mean soaring bills for many struggling firms from this April.
• The Government’s total debt is forecast to hit £1,406,000,000,000, equivalent to every person in Worcestershire owing £23,000 in debt. This will result in higher interest rates to pay for the higher state borrowing, meaning more expensive mortgages.

Harriett Baldwin said: “Our economy is still in trouble. People worry about their jobs, families see their incomes squeezed and many small firms cannot get the support they need from the banks, even though the Government bailed those banks out. Most people across Worcestershire feel worse off than they did five years ago. Gordon Brown is carrying on the same old policies of waste, stealth taxes and debt. He claims to have helped Britain through the recession, but he has only done this by using the nation’s credit card imprudently. We need change. “A Conservative Government will set about balancing the books, whilst protecting those on modest incomes. That is why we will re-link the state pension to earnings, protect things like the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes, protect the lowest paid in our public services, and protect tax credits for low and middle income families.”