Labour might be scaring us all for no reason; Rachel Reeves might get the cash she needs – just by waiting.

She wants to cut £15 billion from government budgets by slimming down the civil service; she wants to cut £5 billion from the benefits system. That’s £20 billion.

But HM Revenue and Customs could make at least part of that money from a new scheme. It’s called “Making Tax Digital”.

Every year there is a gap between what the government expects to take in taxes and what it actually receives – called the “tax gap”. At the moment, it is estimated at £39.8 billion.

The plan is that, by using computers that talk to each other, it will be possible to work out how much money people like us are spending and receiving (for example, to websites like Amazon and from websites like eBay, which are linked to the scheme).

According to a June 2024 report by the National Audit Office (NAO), HMRC estimated that MTD could generate approximately £3.9 billion in additional tax revenue over a five-year period by reducing taxpayer errors. That may be a conservative estimate.

And MTD isn’t the only scheme in existence that may raise revenue for the government without anything more needing to be done.

My question is: have Reeves and her boss Keir Starmer already included schemes like this in their calculations?

If so, how much money are they actually after – and why do they really want so much?

If not, then shouldn’t they include these schemes in their sums and tell us whether they really need to go ahead and starve the sick, the disabled and (now) children?

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