LONDON – Britain should not put taxes up any further, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday in response to a question about public sector pay.
The government is facing demands for higher pay from across the public sector, with nurses and teachers among those who have taken strike action as they demand pay rises which better reflect double-digit levels of inflation.
“I don’t want to put any of your taxes up,” Sunak said in response to a question from a nurse about pay during an event.
“Figuring out how to pay for these things is part of my job and … where we are with taxes at the moment, we can’t put them up anymore, right, and we need to be getting them down. So that’s what constrains me on one end.”
Britain’s budget watchdog has forecast the tax burden is on course to reach 37.1% of GDP in five years’ time, its highest sustained level since World War Two, up from 33.1% in the 2019-20 tax year.