Spring Budget 2023: what we’re asking for and why
Our submission to the Treasury outlined the actions that can be taken to ensure that any recession is shallow and short-lived.
Updated 15 March: Last month, we submitted our six key asks for today’s Spring Budget. What we got was a “strong second act in the Chancellor’s plan for stability and growth.”
It was great to see the Government acknowledge our calls to:
- Reform the UK’s current childcare system to support parents through funding and entitlement to free hours.
- Help businesses provide better workplace assistance and policies – especially for employees with musculoskeletal and mental health conditions.
- Mitigate the impact of the planned corporation tax rise in April and end to the super-deduction by providing full capital expensing to firms.
And we’re looking forward to seeing Government’s next step on how the UK can capture green markets and enhance skills.
You can find our immediate response in our Breaking Views section. But read on to find out more about what we asked for and why below.
Originally published 9 February:
By focusing on stability, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have cleared a path for the country to focus on growth. Jeremy Hunt’s Bloomberg speech and Rishi Sunak’s changes to Whitehall departments help to show the government’s intent. But the Spring Budget is their opportunity to get the UK out of any recession sooner rather than later and transform the UK into a high-growth, innovation economy.
To do that, the Budget needs to deliver action that will drive economic momentum, boost confidence and encourage investment, starting this year. Conscious that measures can’t stoke inflation, we’ve suggested those that instead will deliver sustainable growth and expand the potential of what this country can deliver.
In our submission to the Treasury ahead of the Budget on 15 March, we’ve asked the government to:
- Take long overdue action to tackle acute labour and skills shortages – including measures that support more individuals to remain in the labour market, return and to progress in their careers. This includes reform in childcare, expanding the health support that firms can offer employees, and reforming the Apprenticeship Levy with a two-year pilot scheme.
- Drive lasting productivity growth by unlocking business investment through the tax system – replacing the super-deduction, either by introducing full expensing for capital investment, or setting out a roadmap towards doing so – introducing 50% from this April as the first step.
- Unleash green markets and energy resilience, supporting firms to be more energy efficient as they prepare for next winter, and ensuring the UK can grow its energy security and compete in the race for new green markets and technologies.
The detailed measures have been developed through weeks of consultation with our members and can be found in our full submission. We’ll be talking more about them, and the issues and experiences of our members that has led to them, over the coming weeks.