Yes the economy needs fixing Rachel Reeves- but don't squeeze businesses like a lemon with eye-popping tax rises

09/14/2024 03:26 PM

THE DOOM-LADEN warnings we are now hearing from the Government about next month's 'painful' Budget set a rather different tone from Labour's pre-election pledges to be unashamedly pro-business and pro-growth.

Given the fiscal mess that Rachel Reeves has inherited, it's understandable hard choices must be made.

But it's also vital that the Government maintains a laser focus on promoting the growth of the UK economy.

Because the wealth that successful businesses create is the absolute key to delivering growing tax revenues and the investment in public services we all want to see.

I've personally got broad shoulders and would be happy to pay some more personal tax – though Labour has ruled out raising the 45% top rate.

But the budget that really matters to me is the weekly budget of my customers, and particularly those who are struggling to feed
their families after years of cost-of-living hikes, despite Iceland's best efforts to cut prices and help them in many other ways.

Our colleagues and customers are also desperate to see an urgent improvement in the state of the nation's high streets, which play such a vital role across Britain as community hubs and give us our sense of place. Far too many of these are broken or in spiralling decline.

We could all get behind a budget that promised to deliver fewer potholes, better buses and local services, improved connectivity, more housing, lower crime and the NHS restored.

I'm a great believer in putting more money in the pockets of those who need it most.

The last increase in the National Living Wage cost our business £50m, but we welcomed it as the right thing to do.

Government should certainly look to keep the minimum wage moving upwards, but it needs to do this working with the private sector to phase in changes – and I am confident from my
conversations with Labour that this is the approach they will adopt.

A sudden and dramatic hike in wages risks being unaffordable for the businesses in Britain that are key to our economic success.

I am also in favour of the Labour agenda of enhanced workers' rights, but again this needs to be done by working with business rather than by imposing unrealistic restrictions and conditions on companies that are genuinely trying to do their best for their employees,
Iceland included.

To stem the decline of our high streets, we have seen the first steps on the road to reform of the planning system to speed the opening of new shops and other job-creating enterprises, and the liberation of all the potential new housing that exists in town centres,
above shops and in place of those that are no longer viable.

We also need an urgent and far-reaching reform of business rates, rebalancing the burden so that online retailers pay a much fairer share of the total than they do today.

Whatever happened to Labour's digital sales tax on the tech giants?

They can and should pay more tax.

A week ago my Dad and I visited one of our inner-city Iceland stores in Middlesbrough, where our brave colleagues recently fought off far-right rioters and still wage a daily battle against shoplifters who do not hesitate to use violence to make off with our goods.

We were shown a picture of a colleague whose head was a bloody mess after he was hit on the head with a shopping basket by a despicable toe-rag thieving from the store.

This is not about hungry individuals stealing a little to feed themselves: it is systematic criminality for financial gain, and it needs to be met with firmness and resolve.

Government should now act to strengthen policing, make it clear that thefts of less than £200 do deserve attention, and deliver on the promise to make assaults on shop-workers a specific criminal offence.

But we also need to end this data protection pussy-footing to protect known criminals.

The Information Commissioner – who polices our data laws – should make it clear right now that the sharing of images of thieves between retailers and the police is permitted, and that we and our staff will not be put at risk of sanction for fighting crime.

After 14 years of broken promises and disappointment, Britain now stands at an inflection
point.

A positive and optimistic Budget next month could set us on the path to future prosperity by leveraging the power of the state to invest in long-term projects and people skills that will drive economic growth, which will in turn stimulate increased investment by
the private sector.

There is everything to play for.

But the Tories have already imposed the highest tax burden the UK has ever seen, and Government must recognise that business is already bearing heavy costs.

It is not a lemon that can keep being squeezed without any adverse impact on employment or consumers.

I hope and expect to see a Budget that fulfils Labour's promises, delivers sound public finances and green-lights investments that will deliver a growing economy, a better environment and a stronger society for the benefit of us all.

/