By William Schomberg<\/p>\n
LONDON (Reuters) -The head of a British employers group will accuse finance minister Rachel Reeves on Monday of ignoring them on issues such as energy costs and \u200blabour reforms and urge her to make “hard choices” in this week’s budget.<\/p>\n
The chief executive \u200cof the Confederation of British Industry will also call on Reeves to announce one or two broad tax increases, rather than “death \u200cby a thousand taxes” which could hurt the economy.<\/p>\n
“If growth is your priority, prove it \u2013 make hard choices for it,” Rain Newton-Smith will tell the organisation’s annual conference, according to excerpts of her speech sent to media.<\/p>\n
“All short-term politics leads to is long-term decline … and this \u2060country cannot afford another decade of stagnation.\u200c”<\/p>\n
ECONOMY STUCK IN A RUT<\/p>\n
Britain’s economy has been largely stuck in a rut of slow growth since the 2007-08 financial crisis, something Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer \u200dvowed to end when the Labour Party returned to power after 14 years in 2024.<\/p>\n
However, Reeves looks set to raise taxes by tens of billions of pounds for the second time since the election to stay on track to meet her borrowing targets, \u200bhoping to avoid a bond market selloff while also increasing welfare spending.<\/p>\n
Reeves is no longer expected to break \u200can election promise by raising income tax and will resort instead to increases in a range of other taxes.<\/p>\n
Newton-Smith welcomed the government’s industrial, trade and infrastructure plans. But she called on Reeves to consult with business on energy costs and changes to employment rights, saying: “Lasting reform takes partnership \u2013 not a closed door.”<\/p>\n
She said possible changes to pension schemes would make it more costly for employers to hire.<\/p>\n
MINISTER CONSULTS \u2060ON SCHEME TO CUT ENERGY PRICES<\/p>\n
Business minister Peter Kyle, who is \u200bdue to address the CBI conference, said the government was taking \u200baction as he launched consultations on a scheme to cut energy prices by up to 25% for around 7,000 manufacturers from 2027.<\/p>\n
“This is just the start, and in \u200dthe months ahead I will \u2060be going further to address business concerns,” Kyle said in a press release published by the business ministry.<\/p>\n
Stephen Phipson, head of manufacturers’ group Make UK, said the scheme had to be widened \u2060to have an impact.<\/p>\n
Large, British energy-intensive companies paid about four times more for electricity than U.S. businesses last year,\u200c and more than double competitors in France and Germany, according to the International Energy Agency.<\/p>\n
\u200c(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by David Holmes)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By William Schomberg LONDON (Reuters) -The head of a British employers group will accuse finance minister Rachel Reeves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,68214,185944,393,4884,185943,1144,60394,77438,619,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-590029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-confederation-of-british-industry","11":"tag-employers-group","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-hard-choices","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-peter-kyle","17":"tag-prime-minister-keir-starmer","18":"tag-rachel-reeves","19":"tag-scotland","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115602655025462285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}