Brown to reject calls for tax rise for higher paid
Friday, 25 July 2008
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Gordon Brown will today reject demands by trade unions to relax laws curbing strikes and to bring in higher taxes for people earning more than £100,000 a year.
With the Chancellor Alistair Darling struggling to balance the nation's books, ministers will take a tough line on calls for higher public spending at a meeting of Labour's national policy forum in Warwick. They will block calls by unions and grassroots Labour members for the nationwide introduction of free school meals, arguing that the £1bn cost could be better spent on more targeted help for the poorest children. But they will promise to study the results of a "free and healthy food" experiment which doubled the take-up of meals in Hull before being halted when the Liberal Democrats took control of the council.
Mr Brown will tell union bosses he will not reverse laws to curb industrial action introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Unions are pressing for a return to secondary picketing so they could target firms linked to those involved directly in disputes.
Some local parties are backing union calls for a rebalancing of the tax system in which tax cuts for the low paid would be funded by higher taxes for the wealthy. But ministers regard that as a return to an old Labour agenda. "The policy forum is not the right place to discuss tax rates and we are not going to make unfunded spending commitments," said a senior Labour source.
