Towards the end of April, 79 percent of households in Great Britain reported that their cost of living had risen in the previous month — the highest figure since late 2022. Nearly four in five families are feeling the squeeze at the till, on the energy bill and at the pump. This is the reality behind the government's reassuring statistics, and no amount of spin from the Treasury changes it.

Inflation dipped to 2.8 percent in the year to April, down from 3.3 percent in March, and ministers were quick to claim credit. But economists warn the relief will be short-lived, with some expecting a spike towards 4 percent by the end of the year. A government taking a victory lap on the way back up the hill is not being straight with the public.

A Temporary Cut That Tells You Everything

Labour's headline response is a temporary reduction in VAT to 5 percent, down from 20 percent, on certain restaurant meals and family leisure tickets between 25 June and 1 September. A summer discount on eating out. That is the plan. It is a gimmick timed for the holidays, and it tells you everything about a government that reaches for the gesture rather than the structural fix.

Here is the obvious question ministers will not answer: if VAT at 20 percent is too high to bear over the summer, why is it the right rate in October? If a tax cut helps families in August, it helps them in December too. A temporary cut is an admission that the tax burden is too heavy, combined with a refusal to do anything lasting about it.

This Crisis Has the Treasury's Fingerprints on It

Some of the pressure on prices comes from abroad — the disruption to global oil markets has pushed up energy and food costs, and no British government controls that. But plenty of the pain is home-grown. Frozen tax thresholds are dragging more and more workers into higher bands through stealth. The jobs tax on employers feeds straight through into higher prices and squeezed wages. Choice after choice in recent budgets has taken money out of working people's pockets.

You cannot tax an economy into prosperity, and you cannot tax families into feeling better off. Yet that has been the consistent direction of travel: more revenue for the Treasury, less in the household budget, and a temporary VAT holiday waved around to distract from it.

Working Families Are Carrying the Burden

The people I represent in Preston East are not asking for handouts. They are asking to keep more of what they earn. They want the weekly shop to stop climbing, the energy bill to come down and the tax man to take a smaller slice. Instead they get a complicated summer scheme on restaurant meals and a Chancellor hoping they will not notice the bigger picture.

What Reform UK Would Do

Reform UK would cut taxes for working people permanently, not for a single summer. We would raise the income tax threshold so the lowest earners keep more of their wages and millions are lifted out of tax altogether. We would lift the burden on businesses so they can hire, invest and hold prices down rather than passing costs on.

Lower, simpler taxes are not a giveaway — they are how you let people stand on their own feet. A government serious about the cost of living would trust families with their own money all year round, not just when the cameras are watching in August.