Has Jeremy Hunt had a change of heart or a change of circumstances? The Chancellor has spent the past few months crushing any hope of a major tax cut in next Wednesday’s Autumn Statement, insisting that the government’s main priorities – including tackling inflation and improving the dire state of the public finances – directly contradict calls to cut taxes now.
Just a month ago, Hunt was telling grassroot members at Conservative party conference that the Treasury was in no position to talk about personal tax cuts, ‘or even to ask what if’. If there were to be any kind of update in the Autumn Statement, he said, the priority would be business tax cuts – another hint that the Chancellor is looking to make his ‘full expensing’ scheme, to encourage investment, permanent.
But a lot has changed. This morning on BBC One, Hunt refused to rule out an income tax cut, insisting that while a ‘path to lower taxes’ would have to happen ‘in a responsible way’, his ‘priority’ now that inflation was halved ‘is growth’.
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