News from the New Party

IPPR plans would cause higher numbers to jump from UK Titanic

New Party leader Richard Vass urged the Chancellor today to reject new economic recommendations from the influential left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in his Pre-Budget Report.

Long a favourite of the Labour party, the IPPR calls in its new report for the Chancellor to take us into an Age of Austerity* ushered in by an "honest and bold" package of tax rises hammering the heart of Britain to avoid swingeing cuts in public services.

The New Party leader said today that too many talented people were already making the decision to jump off UK Titanic. The number of 25-44 years-olds leaving Britain jumped by 40% in 2008**. The IPPR recommendations would ensure this figure entered the stratosphere over the coming years.

"The report outlines all the things we should not be doing such as introducing more spurious 'green taxes', a tax hike for Middle Britain and the removal of the National Insurance upper earnings limit. There will be no-one left in the country to pay these taxes if this happens.

"We need to attract people back to the country so we can start the process of wealth creation. This is the only way you can start to bring down a deficit so large that we risk losing our AAA credit rating status," he said.

If the Chancellor really wants to bring stability back to the country then he needs to act by utilising the New Party's five steps to growth:

• Remove the lowest paid from the tax system by raising the tax threshold to a full-time minimum wage
• Abolish business rates
• Reduce corporation tax to 15% with a target of 10%
• Introduce a flat rate of tax at 25% with a target of 22% for all.
• Repeal all employment laws that inhibit recruitment of new staff

"By adopting these policies, the Chancellor would oversee the transition of the UK from a listing ship going nowhere to a buoyant vessel leading in technology, manufacturing, financial services and with the highest rate of inward investment and lowest rate of unemployment in Europe.

"The choice may be his in the Pre-Budget Report, but it is all of us who will pay for years to come if he doesn't act. Those of us who are still here, anyway," Vass said today.

*The document Opportunities in an Age of Austerity: Smart ways of dealing with the UK’s fiscal deficit I is available at the IPPR website here: http://www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=720
**Taken from the latest Office for National Statistics data on emigration: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=507