WYCOMBE MP Steve Baker writes: As Parliament returns after a busy party conference season, I would like to reflect on the new Government’s support package that was announced last month.

As most of the media focused on the cut to the top rate of tax, much of the support that the Government announced for individuals and households has been lost in the noise.

To kickstart our economy’s growth – vital for better jobs and public services – and to support homes through the cost-of-living crisis, the Government announced the biggest tax-cutting package we have seen in years: the basic rate of income tax will be cut from April 2023 – this will benefit 31 million people with an average £170 a year reduction in tax; the planned 1.25% rise in National Insurance will be cancelled – this will save nearly 28 million people an average of £330 per year; there will be a permanent cut in stamp duty, planned rises in beer duty and spirit taxes have been cancelled.

The Government could have designed needlessly complicated and bureaucratic schemes to give households back a tiny amount of their own money, but instead the Prime Minister chose to return to fundamentally conservative policies.

These policies show the Government believes that the public are better placed to decide how their hard-earned money is spent. It is no surprise that the Opposition has denounced the tax cuts package.

The Labour Party has always thought that it knows better than you. It has never trusted and never will trust households with their own money.

Further Government intervention is not the solution to our economic problems.

No one could seriously argue that our current problems are because taxes have been too low, the Government has intervened too little in the economy, or that credit hasn’t been cheap enough.

In both the years before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, we lived through an enormous expansion of state power. While there have been disagreements within the Conservative Party over the past month, our Prime Minister has made it clear that only the Conservative Party champions the public and believes that we can unleash Britain’s potential through a conservative way forward.

I thoroughly agree with this.