Esperanza Aguirre tells Rajoy to reduce income tax

She says now that Europe has relaxed its demands for Spain to pay back its State deficit, now is the time for the PP government to 'leave IRPF as they found it' when they came into power.

In September 2012, income tax for the self-employed went up from 15 per cent to 21 per cent, and retentions for those on job contracts earning salaries, or for any other type of earnings – which are calculated according to the person's individual situation – also increased considerably.

This has seen a huge impact on consumer spending, combined with the IVA hike which saw value-added tax at 'ordinary' rate go up in the same month from 18 to 21 per cent.

Aguirre (pictured) also added that the government should have 'explained its intentions from the word go' in order to avoid 'disheartening the population' when he announced the latest series of reforms on April 26.

Whilst Rajoy claims the fact that Spain has been able to avoid making a further 18 billion in cutbacks to refund its debt is due to his cabinet's economic policies, this is largely due to the EU having agreed to relax the country's targets, allowing Spain to reduce its deficit to 6.3 per cent of the GNP by the end of 2013 rather than the original figure of 4.5 per cent.

And Rajoy's number two, María Dolores del Cospedal, claims foreign investment in the country has increased by 52 billion, latest figures show that it has in fact dropped by as much as 35 per cent.

Cospedal replied to Aguirre that the PP would 'reduce income tax as soon as it was able' and that it had fixed the year 2015 as its deadline.