00:00 We've set out that we think it's unfair that if you have a job you pay two taxes,
00:05 income tax, National Insurance contributions. That's why we've reduced
00:08 National Insurance contributions by a third in the last six months. The
00:13 Chancellor has set out that it is our long-term ambition, it may take some time,
00:17 it may take multiple parliaments, but we want to remove that unfairness. So the
00:21 overall tax burden is still too high and we completely accept that taxes are
00:26 higher than we'd like them to be. But let's remember why they're high. They're
00:30 high because we need to pay back the debt that we accrued supporting families
00:35 and businesses through a global pandemic where we spent 400 billion pounds and
00:40 then when we had the invasion of Ukraine we effectively paid 50% of people's
00:44 energy bills. And so that cost money. It is not right that in a high-rate
00:49 environment we're paying significant amount of debt interest and so it does
00:53 mean that when you're in government you've got to make difficult decisions
00:56 and we've taken difficult decisions when it comes to taxation in the last couple of years.
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