A Treasury minister refused to rule out further tax rises before the next general election, despite a report concluding the tax burden is on track to rise more in the current parliament than in any since the Second World War.

This morning Andrew Griffith, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, was asked if he could commit that the current Government would not raise taxes further in the wake of the Institute for Fiscal Studies report, but he was unable to do so.

He told Times Radio: “Look, I don’t think any responsible Treasury minister is going to make that commitment.

“I can point to what the proud record of Conservative governments is, the fact that philosophically we believe that you need a strong economy, you need to build it on stable foundations, which is why inflation, which puts pressure on that, is so important. . That has been the priority established by the Prime Minister.

“We are on track to achieve this because of the difficult decisions we have made. Directionally, conservatives believe that people keep more of their own money. But I’m sorry I can’t engage you at seven o’clock outside of a tax event as to the details of that.

“But it’s clearly something that’s a consequence of that really significant extra amount of money that no one planned or anticipated because of the global pandemic.”