This week's column comes from Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley 

THE  Autumn Statement – which was a budget in all but name – had some welcome measures for hard-working families and pensioners. 

The Prime Minister and Chancellor always said that as soon as inflation had been brought under control, they would start a programme of tax cuts and we saw in this Autumn Statement that they were as good as their word - although this was only a modest start of the levels of reduced taxes we need to see.

Cuts to National Insurance contributions will mean that those who are both employed and self-employed will pay hundreds of pounds less each year. Meanwhile, pensions will increase as a result of the Triple Lock by 8.5 per cent and so the basic State Pension will be £3,750 higher per year than it was in 2010.

Pubs, cafes, cinemas etc will be helped by reductions in overall business rates, alcohol duty has been frozen and businesses are being encouraged to invest in equipment by generous tax incentives that will hopefully fuel growth.

Also, to encourage growth locally, we have had the recent announcement of a new Investment Zone in West Yorkshire which, it is hoped, will create more than 2,500 new local jobs and unlock over £200 million of investment.

All these tax cuts and incentives are welcome, but I should reiterate there is much more to do.

For example, I believe we should be raising personal allowances and increasing tax thresholds to reduce tax and stop some people paying tax at the higher rates.

I think we should also abolish inheritance tax because it is grotesquely unjust and sees the hard-earned assets of many families being sold off to pay for massive tax bills just because a loved one has died on money that has already been taxed.

As a matter of principle, Conservatives believe that people should be able to spend their money as they see fit and taxes should be kept to an absolute minimum. The same applies to businesses that have far more of an incentive to exist and do well when they are not being taxed to death by the state.

One of the problems is that taxes are so high now to pay for the ruinous cost of locking down the economy for two years during Covid.

It is no good Labour complaining about that as they supported the lockdowns and wanted them to go on for even longer than they did. The whole Covid episode was devastating on many fronts as I have said over and over again. Just one of the longer-term effects has been that ever since then we have been battling an even more bloated state than before.

We need to focus on reducing the size of the state and cutting the cost of it so that more tax cuts can follow in the Budget next March.

A good way to make a start on this would be to stop paying benefits to those who have no intention of ever working and who flout our generous benefits system.

Thankfully the Chancellor’s Statement contained warnings for those very people.

Those who currently enjoy being paid to, at best, sit around and do nothing and, at worst, spend their time being anti-social and making other people’s lives a misery will find it harder to do so as a result of this week’s announcements.

There will be harsher sanctions for those people not looking for work and those who have not moved into work by the end of their Restart course will be required to undertake mandatory work placements. 

Those who choose not to engage with the work search process for six months will have their cases closed and their benefits stopped. This cannot come soon enough as far as I am concerned.

Not only do we need to sort out welfare scroungers but we also have to tackle the scandal of spurious asylum claims from illegal immigrants arriving on boats or by other means which is costing us millions of pounds every single day. 

Millions upon millions wasted on housing these people in hotels, millions on legal aid to help them fight their cases against the Government, millions more needed for public services because of the pressure these extra people put on them.

All this meaning that taxpayers’ billions are being poured down the drain on this needless expenditure year after year and it has got to stop.

Getting a grip on immigration as the Prime Minister is clearly trying to do and reducing Government spending will ensure that come next March we can introduce the further tax cuts that people need and deserve.