Pre-Budget Report must empower business to drive recovery

Ahead of the Pre-Budget Report, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has outlined the measures business wants to hear from the Chancellor, which will boost economic growth, job creation, and help the private sector to drive the UK’s recovery.

Two simple steps for implementation in the short-term…

1. Extend successful support schemes and promote measures that stoke demand, investment and encourage lendig. This should include:

• Extending the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) scheme that has helped firms operating at the margins of bank lending during the downturn.
• To boost output, increase the threshold of the annual investment allowance and maintain the temporary first-year capital allowance of 40% introduced for 2009-10, through 2010-11.
•  Make Small Business Rate Relief automatic to ensure that more small firms receive the reliefs they are entitled to.
  
  

2. Clearly outline a credible plan that illustrates exactly how public spending will be pared back over the life of the next parliament, and how the country’s finances will be brought under control to prevent our international credit rating from being put at risk. This plan must include:

• Freezing the overall public sector pay bill, and reforming public sector pensions to bring them more into line with the private sector.
• Scrutinising every departmental budget with a view to making recommendations for spending cuts. This must go further than simply finding Whitehall efficiency savings.
  

And two for the medium-term…

1. The rise in employer National Insurance contributions, planned for 2011, is a tax on jobs and recovery. It should be cancelled to avoid harming the prospects of those trying to get back into work.

2. Maintain investment in vital business infrastructure, such as transport, energy and high-speed broadband. Infrastructure cuts must not become a politically convenient way to slash spending - especially when there are huge savings to be made in far larger budgets, including health and welfare. A government focused on the UK's future economic success must do everything it can to protect investment in critical infrastructure.

Commenting, David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, said:

“These sensible and realistic proposals are the views of thousands of companies from across the country - they must not be ignored when the Chancellor rises to present his Pre-Budget Report.

“When you break it down, the solutions to the UK’s current problems are quite obvious: Allow the private sector to generate investment, growth and jobs by reducing the red tape and tax burden; provide support and incentives where needed; and rebalance the economy away from debt and the public sector.”

Ends

Media Contact:

Sam Turvey
Tel: 020 7654 5813
Email: s.turvey@britishchambers.org.uk

Notes to Editors:

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is the National Voice of Local Business.
The BCC sits at the heart of a powerful nationwide network of Accredited Chambers of Commerce serving business across the UK, which employ over five million people.