Rishi Sunak: I’m on a mission to decrease taxes

Rishi Sunak will today pledge to cut people’s taxes and make it easier for them to buy their first home as he launches his election manifesto.

Putting the tax divide with Labour at the heart of the Tory campaign, he will invoke the record of Margaret Thatcher and say the Conservatives have a ‘moral’ mission to cut taxes.

Today’s blueprint is expected to include a promise of a further 2p cut in National Insurance, along with a pledge to phase out the ‘double tax on jobs’ completely when resources allow.

But the Prime Minister will also promise action on housing after last night admitting in a BBC interview that it had ‘got harder’ to get on the property ladder. 

The manifesto will include plans to bring back a revamped version of the Help to Buy scheme which offered discounted mortgages for first-time purchasers.

Rishi Sunak’s latest pledge is to cut people’s taxes and make it easier for them to buy their first home

New housing developments like this one on the outskirts of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire aims to solve the housing crisis

Ministers hope that today’s manifesto launch in the Midlands will turbocharge a Conservative campaign which has so far failed to dent Labour’s massive lead in the polls.

Yesterday the PM sought to draw a line under the row about his decision to come home early from last week’s D-Day events in Normandy.

He said he ‘absolutely didn’t mean to cause anyone any hurt or upset’ and appealed to people to ‘find it in their hearts to forgive me’.

Mr Sunak said critics were wrong to ‘write me off’ and vowed to fight ‘until the last day of the campaign’ to keep Sir Keir Starmer out of No 10.

Today he will acknowledge the Government has raised the tax burden to record levels to pay for Covid spending and support payments during the energy crisis.

But he will insist that, with the economy now stabilised, it is time to start cutting taxes again. 

The PM will also highlight how his tax cuts will be funded in large part by a £12billion crackdown on welfare and a new drive against worklessness.

‘We are the party of Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson, a party, unlike Labour, that believes in sound money,’ he will say. 

Today Sunak will acknowledge the Government has raised the tax burden to record levels to pay for Covid spending and support payments during the energy crisis

‘We believe that it is morally right that those who can work do work, and hard work is rewarded with people being able to keep more of their own money.

‘We will ensure that we have lower welfare so we can lower taxes.’

The Prime Minister will add: ‘Keir Starmer takes a very different view. 

‘He says he’s a socialist, and we know what socialists always do: take more of your money.’

The manifesto will also guarantee that the basic state pension will never be taxed.

For Help to Buy, the plans will allow first-time buyers to have a deposit of 5 per cent. 

They will need a mortgage for 75 per cent of the outstanding cost, with the Government and developers lending the rest at a discount.