Responding to the Chancellor’s Budget, Centre for Policy Studies Director Robert Colvile said:
‘This was a bad Budget in every way. Bad because it raises tax to post-war highs. Bad because it puts off difficult decisions until the final years of the forecast period. And bad because it avoids any attempt at reforming and simplifying the tax system, in favour of making it even more complicated and anti-growth.
‘For all the talk of a “smorgasbord” of measures, the heart of the Budget was a perpetuation of the freezes to tax thresholds that Rachel Reeves promised not to extend – and indeed said would be an explicit breach of Labour’s manifesto.
‘At £66.6 billion, the cumulative cost of the freeze to tax thresholds, since its introduction by the Conservatives in 2022-3, makes it the largest tax rise in the last 60 years, at least according to the OBR’s own calculations.’
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
- For more information, please contact Emma Revell on 07931 698246 or [email protected], or Melisa Tourt on 07399 251110 or [email protected]
- On Wednesday 3 December the CPS is hosting a panel discussion on the Budget with the OBR’s Prof David Miles, Richard Fuller MP, and City A.M.’s Alys Denby. To attend please email [email protected]
- Previous CPS reports relating to announcements in today’s Budget include
- The Centre for Policy Studies is one of the oldest and most influential think tanks in Westminster. With a focus on taxation, economic growth, housing, immigration, and energy abundance, its goal is to develop policies that widen enterprise, ownership and opportunity.
Date Added: Wednesday 26th November 2025
