Taxes will be cut, Cabinet minister Michael Gove said on Thursday.
The Levelling-Up Secretary made the unequivocal commitment as some ConservativeMPs are calling for lower taxes soon, including bringing forward the plan to lop 1p off the basic rate of income tax from 2024.
Mr Gove told LBC Radio: “The Chancellor and the PM want to and will introduce tax cuts.
“But the Chancellor would kill me if I announced anything before he did.”
Mr Gove became the fourth Cabinet minister to speak up for tax cuts in recent days, after Health Secretary Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
His comments came after Boris Johnson insisted on Tuesday that it remained a “fundamental Conservative instinct” to cut taxes and Chancellor Rishi Sunak used a speech to the Onward think tank to reaffirm his intention to reduce taxes for business in the autumn.
However, the pressure is on the Chancellor to slash personal as well as business taxes.
In his address, Mr Sunak said that only by Government and the market working together to drive up productivity would it be possible to build a “sustainably high-growth, high-wage economy” in the UK.
“But we must be honest about the longstanding weaknesses hampering our ability to achieve that ... specifically in investment, skills and innovation,” he said.
“The growth and productivity challenge is a shared problem. Government and the market need to crack it together.”
Mr Sunak said his plan for economic growth was based around three priorities - capital, people and ideas.
“So in the autumn we will be setting out a range of tax cuts and reforms to incentivise businesses to invest more, train more and innovate more,” he said.
“Because getting this right won’t just mean the ‘economy’ improves, but real places too.”
However, the Government is coming under growing pressure from backbench MPs to do more on tax cuts soon.
Former Cabinet minister Sir John Redwood tweeted: “The latest forecasts for the UK economy show the Chancellor’s high tax policies are doing damage and gravely slowing growth. Time to change policy.”
