The manifesto, "Empowering Business", follows months of consultation amongst the Chambers' 135,000 business members and challenges all political parties to meet 14 stated business priorities focused on creating in the UK the best economy, regulatory environment, skilled people, transport infrastructure and business support.
Among their demands, the Chambers are pressing for cuts in business payroll compliance costs by at least 20% over the next parliament, regulatory budgets for government departments, and firm commitment to the principle of “regulation as last resort”.
The manifesto also calls for the next government to:
- Reduce the tax burden on business which, according to the OECD, as a percentage of GDP in the UK (14.5%) is much higher than many of UK’s key trading partners: USA (10.0%), Netherlands (11.5%), Ireland (11.7%) and Germany (12.8%).
- Reduce the cumulative burden of regulations on business, through the use of regulatory budgets for government departments
- Make tax simplification a priority, pursuing a tax simplification project similar to the tax law rewrite, but that focuses on the underlying tax system.
- Address priority skills issues, specifically by supporting the establishment of local and sectoral “employer learning networks” for small and large firms to help each other to achieve their training needs.
- At least match the current commitment to invest £180bn in transport over the next ten years, with clearly identifiable priorities, timescales and responsibilities.
- Reform the planning system introducing greater flexibility into development plans and speeding up the planning process.
The British Chambers of Commerce’s General Election Manifesto can be downloaded in pdf format from (N.B. Although only 20 pages, the file size is 7641K).