Business leaders and a Tory grandee have called on Jeremy Hunt to do more to provide help to firms struggling with high taxes.
It follows criticism from a major pharmaceutical company boss of the UK’s tax system, which he says is driving investment out of the country.
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), which represents thousands of firms, today sets out four goals it says the Chancellor ‘must hit’ in his Spring Budget next month. These include reform of the country’s business rates system, which charges firms a levy based on the value of properties used for plying their trade, such as pubs, offices and shops.
Meanwhile, pressure on the Government to cut taxes is ratcheting up from the Tory backbenches, with a string of MPs calling for Mr Hunt and Rishi Sunak to ease the burden in the Budget.
Veteran Conservative MP Sir John Redwood, an ally of Mr Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss, yesterday said ‘sensible targeted tax cuts’ would help boost self-employment and investment while also helping to ‘solve the problem of recruiting and retaining doctors and other skilled staff’.
Business leaders and a Tory grandee have called on Jeremy Hunt to do more to provide help to firms struggling with high taxes
Veteran Conservative MP Sir John Redwood, an ally of Mr Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss, yesterday said ‘sensible targeted tax cuts’ would help boost self-employment and investment while also helping to ‘solve the problem of recruiting and retaining doctors and other skilled staff’
Sir John told Sky News that the Chancellor had done ‘exactly the right thing’ to prioritise growth – but he said ministers should be doing ‘rather more’ and called on them not to rule out tax cuts for boosting investment.
Meanwhile, International Development Minister Andrew Mitchell agreed that Sir John made a ‘very strong point’ about the importance of cutting taxes. But he warned cuts that were not ‘properly funded’ would simply push the burden onto the next generation and, as a result, had to be ‘done at the right time’.
Companies have long criticised the business-rates system, arguing that it is unfair and that a planned rise in rates in line with inflation due in April will be too heavy a burden on firms already struggling. The BCC said changing the business-rates system would remove the ‘upfront financial squeeze’ faced by companies. It also called on the Government to provide funding to help businesses ‘become greener and more energy efficient’ while making childcare more affordable to ease pressure on the labour market. Unemployment is currently at 3.7 per cent, its lowest level since the mid-1970s.
BCC director general Shevaun Haviland said: ‘The last three years have put UK business under huge stress, and we urgently need to see coherent policies from Government that set the economy on a path to growth. Everywhere they turn, businesses see barriers to investment and expansion.’
The intervention comes after a boss at Europe’s biggest pharmaceutical firm warned it could start pulling investment from Britain.
Marie-Andree Gamache, head of the UK and Irish arm of Swiss drug maker Novartis, criticised Britain’s ‘commercial environment’.
The comments followed those from Sir Pascal Soriot, boss of Cambridge-based pharma giant AstraZeneca, who said the company had decided to build a new factory in Ireland rather than Britain because of the latter’s ‘discouraging’ tax regime.
