The Adam Smith Institute Responds to the 2025 Budget

Commenting on the budget, Joanna Marchong, Head of Communications & External Affairs at the Adam Smith Institute, said:

“It was bold of the Chancellor to open her speech by revisiting everything she claimed to stand for at the last Budget, because the public will just as quickly recall everything she said then but clearly didn’t mean. Not least keeping to manifesto commitments, which is clearly in tatters.

Understanding that growth should be a priority is an improvement from the last budget, but thinking it can be done by more spending, regulation and a flotilla of stealth taxes, fiscal drag and policy tinkering will achieve nothing close to stability, but only more pain for the economy.

“Individually, the measures may look modest. But without properly addressing the ballooning welfare bill, missed house building targets, the effect of stealth taxes on workers and our plummeting productivity Britain’s economic stability will continue to be questioned.”

Commenting on the budget, Mitchell Palmer, economist at the Adam Smith Institute, said:

“This is a tax-increasing budget that will harm economic growth. Trying to reduce borrowing by increasing taxes on capital and higher earners simply will not work. It will discourage exactly the business investment that we need to power productivity and wage growth. Instead, the government should have used this chance to get departmental and welfare spending under control. 

The shambolic administration of the Budget is particularly concerning. Business and household confidence have already taken a beating because of the damaging rounds of uncertainty-creating briefing. The premature leak of the Economic and Fiscal Outlook compounded this. Hopefully, the Chancellor’s choice to increase headroom will make this less likely next year.”

Commenting on the budget, Maxwell Marlow, Director of Public Affairs at the Adam Smith Institute, said:

“For anyone looking for a sweet treat after this miserable tax-raising bonanza, they will be bitterly disappointed. Taxpayer funded nanny state activists have successfully lobbied the government to raise taxes on pre-packaged dairy and coffee drinks, despite the fact that previous attempts at these sugar taxes have not reduced obesity or tooth decay. 

Likewise, the failure to cut tobacco duty will hammer revenues and smokers alike, with the new tax on gambling further hurting everyday punters who want to use their money as they see fit.

This government has come to be dominated by nanny state big spenders. Without a change, we will become a less vibrant, freedom loving country that we always were. Let’s hope that the increases in the black market we are expecting to see in tobacco and gambling are less than we fear.”

-ENDS-

Notes to editors:

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