Investing in business must be PM’s mantra, CBI warns
THE Government is being urged to “flip business taxation on its head” amid complaints from firms about a lack of policy detail to help them grow.
CBI director general Tony Danker says “big choices” from ministers in the coming weeks are crucial to investment in pandemic-hit businesses.
Following last week’s announcement of plans to increase National Insurance contributions, Mr Danker is warning that a return to “business as usual” in economic policy would be a mistake. He believes the UK is lagging behind international competitors when it comes to driving investment in future industries.
In a speech in Manchester, he will today say: “The lack of detail and pace from the Government on some of the big economic choices we must make as a country are the biggest concerns for business.
“This autumn requires big choices that will define a decade. Brexit, Covid and climate change all demand that the UK forges a new growth story to compete in the world – and believe me this will be a competition, for new markets, new skills and technological advantage.
“One of the great risks of the Budget, the Spending Review and the Global Investment Summit – all set for this autumn – as well as our net-zero strategy, infrastructure strategy and skills policy, is that we are too proud about what we’ve done so far. The 2021 reality is quite different.
“Over the last two years, every country’s strategy to win the future has shifted dramatically. Every country is choosing to invest in the future.
“Investing by the UK. That must be our mantra now, so the decade ahead does not repeat the low growth and zero productivity of the past decade.” Mr Danker is calling for rewards for firms which invest; new individual training accounts to make it easier to access support; speeding up major infrastructure projects and replicating the successes of offshore wind in hydrogen and other emerging industries; and rebalancing economic regulation, among other policies.
He will add: “After the pandemic, we in business believe that we should pay our fair share to tackle the debts of Covid.
“That is why many business leaders accepted the jaw-dropping six-point corporate tax increase announced in March.
“But there is a real risk now that the Government will keep on forcing business taxes to carry the load. Choosing National Insurance for social care funding is the latest example.”