Government wants to scrap 'a very large welfare state,' says Truss Cabinet ally

Liz Truss' government is considering ways to reduce the size of the welfare state, suggested key cabinet ally Simon Clarke.

The leveling secretary said ministers were seeking to ensure the "extremely large" state is aligned on a low-tax economy, as economists and unions warn of major austerity cuts ahead.

Mr. Clarke said Britons and others in Western Europe lived in a "fool's paradise" in which they enjoyed a "very extensive welfare state" despite sluggish economic productivity.< /p>

"I think it is important that we look at an extremely large state and consider how we can ensure that it is fully aligned with a low-tax economy,” the minister said. >Time.

Mr. Clarke said: "My great concern in politics is that Western Europe is simply living in a lunatic's paradise in which we can be less and less productive compared to our peers, while enjoying a very large welfare state. and persisting in thinking that the two are somehow compatible in the medium to long term. They're not."

Pointing to spending cuts, he added, "I think it's is very difficult to cut taxes if you don't have the proportionate profile of spending and supply reform... We are privileged to deal with very large budgets My experience is that there is always something thing you can do to cut the fat."

Government on track to cut public spending by nearly £50bn a year after Chancellor's 'unenforced error' Kwasi Kwarteng. mini-budget, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank.

Welsh Secretary Robert Buckland has signaled that deep public spending cuts are underway as the government seeks to reassure markets on the fact that he can balance the books after a week of turmoil.

“We intend to be extremely rigorous when it comes to cutting public spending,” Mr. Buckland to Sky News on Saturday, saying there would be spending announcements in the coming weeks.

The minister said the government wanted to reassure the market that it "will seek to balance the accounts in a reasonable way" by ensuring that departmental spending is as "efficient and as lean as possible".

It comes at the end of a chaotic week which has seen the pound slump At historic low, Bank of Eng land forced to spend billions on government debt and Labor take an astonishing 33-point lead over the Tories.

Ms Truss refused to commit to the annual inflation-linked benefit increase in April - something Rishi Sunak promised to do when he was Chancellor.

Pressed in her interview with broadcasters on Friday evening, the Prime Minister said only that it was "something the Secretary for Work and Pensions [Chloe Smith] examines".

Former Labor Chancellor Alistair Darling told Times Radio on Saturday that an OBR assessment would have made "it was blindingly obvious that they were going to have to start cutting the amount of money we spend on public services".< /p>

Mr. Darling added, "It's chaos, and the chaos is the result of what the government has done...It's totally different from what happened in the financial crisis, where just about everyone countries around the world have discovered that their banking systems are on the brink of collapse."

Lord Turnbull, fo the former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, has accused Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng of undermining the Bank of England, the OBR and the Treasury.

"The government's continued refusal...to fill the information gap indicates that it has still not understood what lies behind the problem,” he wrote in The Times.

Some Tory MPs predicted Ms Truss would struggle to push real benefit cuts across the House Some worried Tory rebels are also keen to overturn Ms Truss's scrapping of the 45p tax rate.

Meanwhile, the leveling secretary has equal ment hinted that other sweeping plans for the economy announced by Mr Kwarteng in late November could include changes to the green belt.

"The fact that the green belt is bigger...