73% of Britons think the government is managing the economy badly, with the public tending to think the government taxes and spends too much
Tomorrow, chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver her Spring Statement, updating parliament and the public on the state of the British economy and outlining any updated spending plans. Government borrowing being higher than expected has led many to expect she will announce spending cuts.
The economy dominates the political agenda, with half of Britons (51%) saying they see it as one of the most important issues facing the country. This is more than for any other political issue, with the economy consistently leading YouGov’s issues tracker since last September. Its dominance is even more acute among Labour voters, with 60% currently identifying it as one of the top national issues.
Three quarters of Britons (73%) believe the government is badly managing the economy, relative to just one in six (16%) who think Labour are doing well on the issue. Even among Labour voters themselves, six in ten (58%) feel the government are doing poorly, compared to a third (32%) who feel they’ve done a good job on the economy so far.
The public are also critical of chancellor Rachel Reeves herself, with half of the public (53%) saying she has done a bad job as chancellor, and only 11% assessing her performance at the treasury positively.
Nonetheless, despite the poor report card for the government, few believe the opposition would do better, with the 22% of Britons saying a Conservative government would be better at managing the economy identical to the 22% saying so of a Labour government. For the largest portion of the public (38%), though, ‘neither’ party is seen as better than the other.
There is even less expectation the Conservatives would be doing better on other aspects of the economy. Only one in six Britons (17-18%) feel they’d be better at improving living standards or tackling the government’s deficit than a Labour government, and just one in seven (14-15%) think the Tories would be doing a better job at providing more jobs or keeping prices down.
Across all areas, however, the most common belief (39-47%) is that neither a Conservative or Labour government would be doing a better job than the other, perhaps unsurprising when Labour and the Tories collectively only total 45% of the vote share in YouGov’s latest voting intention results.
Do Britons feel the government is taxing and spending too much?
One of Rachel Reeves’ key challenges as chancellor is balancing the public desire to see services improve and their increasing tendency to believe they are being taxed too much.
At present, four in ten Britons (41%) believe the government taxes and spends too much, compared to 23% who feel it taxes and spends too little and 12% who think they get the balance about right. This is a marked shift from when Labour won the election last summer, at which point more Britons felt government taxing and spending was too low (35%) than saw it as too high (28%).
But while the public as a whole might tend to see current levels of taxing and spending as too high, this view is concentrated among Reform UK (73%) and Conservative voters (61%). Just one in five Labour voters (21%) agree, against another fifth (20%) who feel currently levels are about right and a third (35%) who believe the government actually taxes and spends too little at present.
Nonetheless, while only around a quarter of Britons (23%) believe the government taxes too little as a whole, this is not true of the rich, with 56% of the public saying the rich are not paying enough tax, compared to just 8% who feel the rich are made to pay too much.
Again, though, this exposes a political divide, with the eight in ten Labour voters (78%) who feel the rich don’t pay enough tax comparing to 66% of Lib Dems, 43% of Reform UK voters and 34% of Conservatives.
Where do Britons think spending should be cut?
Six in ten Britons (60%) would like to see spending on overseas aid cut back, and are therefore likely to welcome the government’s decision to redirect aid funding to the defence budget earlier this year, particularly given 32% say defence spending should be increased.
Welfare benefits would be a top choice of cuts for a third of the public (32%), up from 26% before the election, while 29% would like to see climate-related spending reduced, the highest level since YouGov began asking this question in 2019.
The NHS remains the area of government spending where the public would most like to see an increase, with 69% of Britons saying it is one of the three areas they would most like to see spending go up. Four in ten (38%) would prioritise an increase in spending on crime and policing, while a third (34%) say the same of education.
Reflecting growing concerns around defence, the third of Britons believing it is one of the top sectors that the government should spend more on is up from 22% in January.
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Photo: Getty
