Budget 2021: Labour's position remains a mystery as chancellor prepares crucial budget
Sky's Helen-Ann Smith says the shadow chancellor is yet to commit Labour to how it would tackle the fallout from the COVID crisis.
Monday 1 March 2021 18:46, UK
There's little debate, Wednesday's budget will be one of the most important in recent times.聽
It'll be another sort of roadmap, albeit longer and possibly more painful. It will chart at least the start of how we move from the deep slump of this recession to recovery.
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The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has spent the last week preparing people. His talk of "being straight" and "levelling" with the public has been pretty clear to read: recovering from the worst economic slump in 300 years will, inevitably, involve tax rises.
But at this key moment, when recovery plans are being tabled, when hard truths are starting to be faced, from Her Majesty's Opposition we had, well, opposition and no real alternatives.
Leaks mean we know some of the tax rises we might expect come Wednesday.
Rishi Sunak could announce a pathway to raise corporation tax, a freezing of the rate at which workers start paying income tax and possible increases of National Insurance payments for the self-employed.
The shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds wouldn't commit to supporting any of it and wouldn't comment on the time frame in which that might change.
Reluctance on corporation tax rises might leave supporters particularly bamboozled; raising it was part of the 2019 Labour election manifesto.
"Of course, we would look at any long term plan [on corporation tax] carefully." says Ms Dodds.
"I want to see change in the corporation tax system. But what I don't want to see is the chancellor saying that he's imposing immediate increases in taxation right now, and that he's doing that for the sake of the economy, when all the experts are saying that now is the time to focus on building back economic recovery."
She has a point here. The vast majority of economists, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are currently counselling caution when it comes to the speed of tax rises.
The economy needs the chance to properly reopen, they say, consumer confidence needs to be restored, spending needs to recover to a degree before businesses and households are lumbered with more costs.
But that's in the immediacy.
Long-term recovery will need a long-term plan.
Any indication on what the shadow chancellor would put in such a plan is still lacking, every probe for specifics dodged with more general nods to the need for tax "reform" or "change".
When might be the right time for a rise in corporation tax?
"We obviously need to look at the economic circumstances at the time."
What about wealth taxes?
"We need to make that system much fairer."
Universal Credit, should the temporary uplift be made permanent?
"We need to have a much more effective system of social security into the future that's not delivered by Universal Credit."
The pension triple lock, could that go?
"A Conservative manifesto commitment. It's really important, I think, that they're held to account around that."
Ms Dodds has laid out some of what she wants to see in the budget; extensions and adaptations to the furlough and Self-Employed Income Support Schemes to make them fairer, "smarter" and more comprehensive, an extension to business rates relief and hospitality VAT cuts, and accelerated investment to create new green jobs.
But short-term spending is the easy bit.
Post-recession policy always includes hard choices and difficult decisions, too.
The fact remains that there is a massive black hole in the country's finances, net debt is at £2.13trn, nearly 100% of the value of GDP. Borrowing remains the highest it's been in decades.
Plugging that gap will involve some pain.
A legitimate debate can and should be had about the right right way to rebuild the economy; how much to spend and on what, what to cut and how, when to raise taxes and which ones.
We may find out more on Wednesday on which approach the chancellor favours, but we still don't really know where Labour stands.
Watch and follow the Budget live on Wednesday with special coverage and analysis from 12.30pm.
A special edition of the Daily podcast will be available to listen to from 7pm.