Support in Britain for increased levels of tax to fund more public spending has hit a 15-year high, according to a survey published on Friday, after nearly a decade of government efforts to cut its budget deficits.
The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) said its survey, based on interviews conducted in 2017, showed 60 per cent of respondents backed more tax and spending, up from 49 per cent in 2016 and 31 per cent in 2010.“Since 2010 the proportion of people who want more tax and spend has nearly doubled and shows the country is clearly tiring of austerity,” NatCen’s Head of Public Attitudes, Roger Harding, said.
The survey showed majority support for more tax and spending from voters for the ruling centre-right Conservative Party, which typically favours lower taxes, as well as supporters of the left-wing opposition Labour Party, NatCen said. The last time more than half of Conservative voters thought the government should raise tax and spending was in 2002, it said.
With many voters angry about a fall in their earnings over the past 10 years, when adjusted for inflation, Prime Minister Theresa May promised in June to spend more money on the health service. Britain has slashed its budget deficit from about 10 per cent of economic output in 2010 to around 2 per cent now. Finance minister Philip Hammond has said his priority is to bring down the stockpile of public debt, which he says remains too high at around 85 per cent of GDP.
More spending on the health service was the top priority for 54 per cent of respondents in the NatCen poll, followed by education with 26 per cent and housing 7 per cent. A third of those polled said tax and spending levels should stay unchanged and 4 per cent thought the government should tax and spend less. The NatCen survey on tax and spending was based on responses from 2,963 people interviewed between July and October last year as part of its broad British Attitudes Survey, other findings of which have been published in recent months. A NatCen spokeswoman said the delay in publishing the findings was typical for the British Attitudes Survey.
