Liberal Democrats Mean Business

Businesses are Britain’s true engine of prosperity - creating good jobs, fostering thriving local communities, and driving the innovation that funds our public services. Yet, for far too long, British firms, especially small high street businesses, have been failed by a toxic combination of the Conservatives’ economic mismanagement and Labour’s anti-growth tax hikes.

Small businesses are currently wasting an estimated £25 billion a year and 44 hours per firm just filling out compliance forms. Meanwhile, too many early-stage start-ups are being forced overseas to raise growth capital because of outdated investment limits and a tax system built for a bygone era.

Today, Liberal Democrat members passed a comprehensive new policy to cut red tape, unleash private sector investment, and build a mutually beneficial partnership between the public and private sectors.

Breaking Up the "Anti-Growth" Treasury

To grow our economy, we need a government structure that works with enterprise, not against it. Our headline reform breaks up the Treasury and creates a new Department for Growth - based in Birmingham - to serve as a single, accessible "one-stop-shop" for businesses and investors:

• A Single Point of Contact: Merging the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade into the new Department for Growth, assigning individual account managers to firms so they no longer have to navigate endless Whitehall departments.
   
• Splitting Spending from Strategy: Creating a separate, smaller Department for Public Expenditure focused on setting government budgets and securing value-for-money, allowing the Department for Growth to focus purely on long-term prosperity.

Cutting Red Tape, Tackling Business Costs and Reinstating Incentives

We are launching a major campaign to tackle the unfair jobs tax, cut energy costs and  strip away bureaucratic drag while safeguarding fundamental consumer and worker rights:

• Slashing the "Jobs Tax": Reinstating lower National Insurance Contribution rates for part-time workers and young people to tackle youth unemployment and support struggling sectors like hospitality.
   
• Tackling Energy Rip-Offs: Introducing transparent energy contracts for small firms and extending access to the Energy Ombudsman.
   
• Streamlining Compliance: Launching an ambitious drive to cut the bureaucratic burden on British businesses, while safeguarding consumer protections, workers' rights and EU alignment.

Unleashing Capital and Innovation

To make the UK the best place in the world to launch and scale a business, we must update our economic architecture for the modern digital age:

• Supercharging Start-Up Capital: Raising Venture Capital Trust (VCT) and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) limits above the current £250,000 cap so founders can scale-up here in the UK.
   
• Tax Relief on Intangibles: Extending full expensing to software and intellectual property, and adopting pre-clearance R&D systems evaluated upfront by scientists and engineers, not tax auditors.
   
• Making the most of new tech: Championing employee representation on the company boards of large firms, to encourage collaboration between big businesses and workers on the best way to adopt AI. 

British enterprise doesn't need more government meddling or chaotic tariff wars - it needs a stable, pro-enterprise partner that understands how growth actually happens. 

Liberal Democrats are ready to back British firms, raise living standards, and get our economy moving again.