Treasury officials are believed to be considering a range of options, including reducing employee national insurance contributions, cutting income tax and extending the freeze on fuel duty.
The Sunday Times reported that Mr Hunt will scrap the preferential tax regime for holiday lets in the Budget. It is expected that the move will help to raise £300million a year.
This week Mr Hunt will announce plans to boost public sector productivity in an attempt to deliver up to £1.8 billion worth of benefits by 2029.
He said: “Public sector waste is immoral. It is taking money out of taxpayers’ pockets.”
The Chancellor said he wanted to restart the programme of public sector reform which was halted during the pandemic, adding: “We’re going to do it for a very conservative reason, which is that I look around the world and I know that the most successful economies are ones with lower taxes, particularly North America and Asia.”
Mr Hunt went on to say that there is “too much waste across many parts of the public sector”, adding that “the money we spend on public services could be spent much more efficiently”.
He also criticised “woke” spending by Whitehall departments, where civil servants’ time and resources are spent on equality, diversity and inclusion hires and initiatives.
Glass ceilings
“I find some of those initiatives very hard to defend,” he said.
“I’m a big believer in smashing glass ceilings, but the people who smash glass ceilings, or who can make sure the glass ceilings are smashed, are the people who run companies and who run organisations. It’s not something you should subcontract to a kind of a unit of people who are paid a lot of money.”
Earlier this year, the head of Britain’s spending watchdog warned that more than £10 billion of taxpayers’ money was being wasted by the public sector every year. Gareth Davies, the head of the National Audit Office, said poor management, benefits fraud and “antiquated” computer systems were to blame.
The Chancellor will announce a range of measures to boost productivity, such as fitting MRI scanners with artificial intelligence so patients can get faster results, and interviewing crime witnesses and victims via video call to speed up police investigations.
Mr Hunt said he would like to see the number of Civil Service jobs return to pre-pandemic levels, meaning 66,000 Whitehall jobs would be cut, which is equivalent to one in seven.
William Turner is a seasoned U.K. correspondent with a deep understanding of domestic affairs. With a passion for British politics and culture, he provides insightful analysis and comprehensive coverage of events within the United Kingdom.
