Despite Chancellor Rishi Sunak announcing he intends to lower the basic rate of income tax to 19% by May 2024, forecasts show the UK is still heading for its highest tax burden since the late 1940s.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned living standards face their biggest fall in a single year since records began in the mid-1950s.

South Dorset's Richard Drax MP urged the Treasury to “go further”, as “lower taxes generate more cash”.

The MP for South Dorset was speaking as the Commons debated the National Insurance Contributions (Increase of Thresholds) Bill.

The Bill will change the thresholds at which UK workers will pay national insurance. The starting thresholds will rise to £12,570 from July, aligning income tax and national insurance in a tax cut worth more than £6 billion, according to the Treasury.

The Government previously announced that a UK-wide 1.25 percentage point health and social care levy based on national insurance contributions will be introduced from April 6, ring-fenced for health and social care.

Speaking about the spring statement when the threshold increase was announced, Mr Drax said: “Now, I applaud the Chancellor for going as far as he went, and that’s what I said in my statement yesterday. But many of my constituents in South Dorset are impoverished already.

“We have deep pockets of deprivation and poverty, and I fear that despite the generous moves by the Chancellor and the tinkering that he has done haven’t gone far enough.”

Mr Drax added: “I just want to say to the Treasury bench, with the cost of living spiralling and taxes at the highest for 70 years, can I urge them to go further? As they know full well, lower taxes generate more cash.

“It is a proven point. And something that Conservatives on this side of the house have fervently followed for as long as I can recall.

• READ MORE: MP Richard Drax slams Conservatives spending plan during Budget debate

“Why? Well again, as the bench knows, low taxes are a force for good both for the individual who is far better placed to decide where to spend their money and for the private sector, which can better invest in their businesses, employ more staff and sustain a profit, an ugly word for the members opposite, I know. And let’s not forget it is the tax from these profits, which pay for the public sector.”

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He said: “Low taxes are a force for good both for the individual who is far better placed to decide where to spend their money, and for the private sector, which can better invest in their businesses, employ more staff and sustain a profit… and let’s not forget it is the tax from these profits, which pay for the public sector.”

“I welcome the Chancellor’s talk of more tax cuts to come, but in my humble opinion, and certainly for my constituents for the reasons I’ve stated, they will come too late,” he said.

Mr Drax also suggested he wants to see reductions in some areas of public expenditure, such as the NHS.

He said: “In the Chancellor’s statement yesterday what I didn’t hear was the good Conservative word savings. The opposition call it cuts, I call it savings. We appear to acquiesce to every demand for more money. This is taxpayers’ money and surely now it is time to review, for example, the big spenders, like the NHS and welfare.

“Of course they are both needed, but surely it is time to review both to make sure that we are getting value for money.”

He said he disagrees with the national insurance rise which would “see billions of pounds disappearing into a blackhole, followed very soon afterwards by demands for more”.

“I don’t believe, for the sake of the public finances, this can go on,” he said.

Rishi Sunak said his tax plan “delivers the biggest net cut to personal taxes in over a quarter of a century”.

Yesterday the Chancellor unveiled his highly anticipated spring statement, vowing to “stand by” British families in the face of the mounting cost of living. 

But the cost-of-living crisis driven by rising fuel and energy prices is set to be further exacerbated in April by a 1.25 percentage point rise in national insurance to fund the NHS and social care.

The Chancellor decided against postponing the planned hike, despite calls from across the political spectrum.

• Read more: Chancellor's Spring Statement 'won't have gone far enough for some businesses in Dorset'

However Mr Sunak did elect to raise the threshold for when the payments are made – a compromise some had anticipated.

Meanwhile the Chancellor announced his intention to cut fuel duty to ease the pressure on cash-strapped households.

Mr Sunak said tax on fuel will be cut by 5p per litre for a year, from Wednesday evening.

And there was an unexpected promise from the Chancellor to cut the basic rate of income tax before the end of the current parliament in 2024.

It had been suggested the Chancellor could also uprate benefits to put more money in the pockets of low and middle-income households.

The Resolution Foundation had called for a five percentage point increase to keep pace with inflation, calling it the most effective way to support hardest-hit families.

The think tank said it would deliver four times more support to the bottom half of the income distribution per pound spent than scrapping the rise in national insurance contributions.