Tory deputy leader says Badenoch would ‘love to get rid’ of inheritance taxpublished at 10:38 BST
10:38 BST
Image source, EPA
Conservative deputy leader Alex Burghart says finding public savings and using them to cut taxes and the deficit would allow the country to enter a “virtuous cycle”.
He told Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that the current government borrowing situation is “very, very serious”, with the cost of borrowing “higher now than it’s been at any point since 1998”.
“We have to clamp down on that,” he said.
Half the savings the Tories have pledged to find would go into “getting the deficit down” while the other half would go into tax cuts to “get the economy moving”.
Pushed on whether tax cuts will simply give the Tories less money to spend, Burghart called this a “classic misunderstanding”, adding that cutting taxes in a way that promotes growth would mean “more jobs”.
Asked about speculation the Conservatives are planning to cut inheritance tax, he said: “We haven’t made any announcement on inheritance tax; there’s been a lot of press speculation.”
He said leader Kemi Badenoch would “love to get rid of it” but “we’re not going to do anything we can’t afford”, adding she has asked shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith and his team to see “what’s possible and when”.