Chancellor Rachel Reeves was given a brutal lesson in economics by a member of the public on BBC’s Question Time, chaired by presenter Fiona Bruce. A member of the audience who said she was an accountant described slammed the Chancellor’s plan to increase taxes – and insisted this wasn’t the way to fix a “black hole” in the economy.
The woman said: “It is ridiculous the state of our economy. We have lost track of value for money. You talk about how much you have pumped into the NHS… but there is no value for money.” The woman went on to say the UK’s public services “don’t work”. And she said: “In terms of rasing taxes even further, if I was supporting a business and they came to me and said they were in a black hole like we are, and said ‘but it’s okay ,we are going to raise our prices to our customers’, I wouldn’t say that was a good idea.
“I’d be like ‘how do your customers currently feel? Do they feel like they are getting value for money?’
“Let’s look at other strategies, let’s look at cost savings let’s look at how we can build efficiency and stop wasting time. The amount of wasted resources we have in this country, something has to change.”
She was speaking after Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander hinted that taxes on the most wealthy will be part of the Chancellor’s Budget on November 26.
Ms Alexander said: “We do believe that those with the broadest shoulders in society should carry the greatest burden.”
And she pointed out that Labour had already put up taxes which affected more wealth people, such as imposing VAT on independent school fees.
Press on whether that meant there would be more similar taxes, Ms Alexander said: “The Chancellor is going to set out the budget on November 26.”
Fiona Bruce said: “It sounds like the direction of travel is higher taxes in some form.”