Chief Secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott insists the government is committed to cutting tax “where it is responsible to do so” after the chancellor tempered expectations about reductions in the spring budget. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 We are committed to cutting tax where it's fiscally responsible to do so.
00:04 We will always make sure that we are doing things in a responsible way.
00:08 We know that low taxes are associated with higher growth.
00:11 We're very focused on growing the economy.
00:14 That is why in both the spring budget last year and the autumn statement,
00:17 we did things which will boost growth by a historic amount,
00:19 according to the OBR, who's the bean counter in all of this.
00:24 So it's something that we are really, really focused on,
00:26 but we've only cut taxes where it's responsible to do so.
00:29 We completely understand the pressure that local councils are under at the moment,
00:34 and that's why we've actually just given councils £600 million as part of a package
00:39 to address exactly that.
00:41 Because we know that an ageing population,
00:44 the pressures of social care, children's social services,
00:48 you know, those are all adding costs to your local council.
00:51 It's also the pressures of illegal migration as well.
00:53 I'm a Kent MP.
00:55 I can see the pressure that my local council, Kent County Council,
00:58 is under because of that.
00:59 So we are giving councils more money,
01:01 and we're also addressing the root causes of some of those increased costs.