The public are more likely to want to decrease taxes and spend less on public services since last year
Key takeaways
- Britons are split on tax and spending, with 26% wanting to cut taxes and reduce government spending, 26% wanting to increase taxes and raise spending, and 27% wanting to keep things as they are
- This represents an increase for the ‘cuts’ side since June 2025, while preferences for increases or the status quo have fallen slightly
- Change driven primarily by Tory and Reform voters
- Across various specific areas of spending attitudes are the same as last year, except for welfare
- 54% of Britons now want to cut welfare spending, up from 41%
- Desire to cut welfare spending has increased across all voting groups
With Westminster waiting for the coming Budget to get the first detailed look at how new prime minister Andy Burnham intends to manage public spending, a new YouGov survey shows what approach the British public want to take on tax and spending in general, and their attitudes to several specific areas of government spending .
In June 2025, the last time we asked these questions, there was a two-way contest between wanting to keep tax and spending as they are (33%) or increasing taxes and spending more (30%), with those preferring to decrease taxes and spend less trailing far behind on 17%.
As of this month, the situation is now a three-way split. There has been a nine point increase in the number wanting to reduce tax and spend (to 26%), while there have been smaller decreases in the numbers opting for keeping things as they are (now 27%) or hiking taxes and boosting spending (26%).
This shift is primarily driven by Tory and Reform voters, having swung 16-21pts behind tax and spending cuts in the last 16 months. This means it is now the most common answer among both groups (44% for Tories, 50% for Reform voters), where last year the Tories had been more likely to favour the status quo, while Reform voters had been split between cuts and keeping things as they are.
By contrast, the increase has been only 4-6pts among Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters, for whom it is still the least common preference by a significant margin (only 10-17% choose this option).
While public attitudes to most areas of spending we asked about remain unchanged, there has been a sizeable shift towards cutting the welfare budget
Of course, it is one thing for the public to say they want spending reduced – but where do they want to see the axe wielded?
Our previous wave of this research asked what Britons thought should happen across eight key areas of government spending: building new social housing, policing, healthcare and the NHS, reducing carbon emissions, international aid, social care, education, and welfare benefits. For this year’s version, we have added an additional category: defence.
In most areas there has been little change since last year. The public are strongly in favour of spending more on the NHS (67%), with a plurality saying the same for social care (49%) and policing (47%).
Meanwhile, they are divided between maintaining current budgets or increasing spending when it comes to education (44% vs 44%) and building new social housing (36% vs 34%).
Most Britons still want to see less spending on international aid (64%), while this also continues to be the most common answer for cutting carbon emissions, at the much lower rate of 39%.
When it comes to welfare, there has been much more notable movement. While the most common preference is still for cuts, this has increased from 41% last year to 54% now. This has been coupled with a five point reduction in the numbers wanting to see budgets maintained (to 28%) and a seven point fall in the number wanting to increase welfare spending (11%).
This year’s newcomer – defence spending – shows 52% wanting the government to spend more in this area, twice the number who want to only maintain defence spending (26%) and almost four times the number who want to see it cut (14%).
As with the population as a whole, attitudes among the main voting groups have remained broadly consistent from last year.
On welfare spending, we can see that the biggest shift in favour of cutting budgets has been among Tory voters (up 25pts to 81%) as well as Reform and Green voters (both up 17pts, albeit to very different levels of 74% and 31% respectively). It has also grown among Labour (by 14pts to 45%) and Lib Dem voters (by 10pts to 53%). Among all voting groups other than the Greens, cutting welfare is the most favoured option; in the case of Labour voters, this marks a crossover from last time, when keeping spending static was the preferred outcome.
Methodology
- Sample size: An online survey of 2,079 adults aged 18+ living in Great Britain
- Fieldwork: 8-9 October 2026
- Commissioned by: YouGov
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Photo: Getty
