Lorely Listens

Written by Lorely Burt and published in Solihull Times on Wed 8th Mar 2006

We had a visiting delegation of Swedes to Parliament last week. Now I don't know how much you know about Sweden, but they have just about the best health, education and welfare system in Europe, if not the World. And the highest taxes.

So as a comparatively low tax, low service provision country, they were as keen to talk to us about the benefits and disadvantages of our system as we were about theirs.

High taxes have their disadvantages: attracting global employers is hard because the cost of each employee is much higher. The Swedes have 1 million unemployed, which for a small country is a high burden.

In Britain we are relatively good at attracting employers because we have a flexible labour market: people move in and out of jobs relatively easily. We enjoy relatively high prosperity, but the gap between those who enjoy the fruits of that prosperity and whose who don't is growing wider under Labour as it did under the Conservatives.

Each party spelled out their economic philosophy for the visiting Swedes. The Conservative spokesman said they concentrate on generating the wealth and worry about the fairness of distribution afterwards. Labour are also keen on generating wealth and try to pull the poorest out of poverty with means tested benefits. I said Lib Dems wanted a fairer, but not heavier tax system which is better related to people's ability to pay.

One thing is for sure: nobody likes paying tax. But it's a balancing act to try and make Britain as wealthy and competitive in this global world as possible. Personally, I do believe we need to concentrate on fairer tax rather than more tax.. What about you?