The Chancellor announced a raft of infrastructure projects with forms of pensions, benefits and trade deals yesterday. Joining us now is someone who was in the room when she made that speech, Chevoron Havlin, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce. Good morning, Chavorn, thanks for your time. You have called this a clear marker. You welcomed the Chancellor's push for growth, but it won't deliver in the short term, will it.
It will deliver in the short term and lots of different places. Remember this is a really difficult time for business. Natal insurance increases are going you know, coming in place in just a few weeks, so tax rises for all businesses. So it was really good to see the Chancellor focus on economic growth. Airport expansion, Heathrow, Doncaster, Sheffield new Road, rail low attempts crossing East West rail and rebalancing the planning system as you were outlined.
So those things will have not just there are a great.
Signifier, global signifier of confidence and the direction we're traveling in. You know, big infrastructure projects, as you say, take a long time, so you need to start now. But remember that indicator for the small and medium sized businesses in those supply chains will already give them confidence to think about investing now and growing their businesses now so they can supply those into those infrastructure projects.
But Tavon, is it going to be enough. Those businesses are worried about how they're going to pay for the national insurance rise coming in a couple of months time. The budget has been very difficult and we've seen that reflected in both business and consumer confidence figures.
The budget has been very difficult.
It has, and especially if you have a business with a large employee base, it is going to be very hard. Our businesses are telling us they're going to have to put up prices if they can. A lot of them have already put up their prices. That's going to be tricky. They're going to take it in their margin, which means lowersment or they're going to slow down recruitment and none
of that is good. But you remember, at the same time in the budget the Chancellor also said to mitigate against those issues, we need more opportunity for business and she talked about getting Britain back to building homes, hospitals, energy infrastructure, and so you know, the announcements yesterday are a really good step in that direction.
They're a really good indicator for that.
Okay, things that infrastructure projects, it's not just local supply chains and local economic development. Often supply chains run all over the country. Connectivity, airport expansion. That's fantastic for trade, you know, moving our goods around the world, and it also global competitiveness.
Okay, but she did not reverse the tax increases on business from the October budget. I mean, okay, you can understand why she might not do that, but she will be under pressure to do something in the spring statement potentially if her fiscal head doom disappears, it's either going to be cuts to government or it's going to be more tax increases. Are you expecting more tax increases to come?
Do you want her to do, let's say something that would be much more business positive, lower corporation tax in Britain.
We well, I don't know what she's going to do in the spring, and we're definitely not expecting any tax increases for business. She's been pretty clear that that was a what did you call it yesterday, once in.
A generation tax increase.
However, there are other places where she can help business, so we've asked her to accelerate her review of business rates. Business rates are the tax that you pay on property, so really hard. If you're on the high street, you know, before you've even sold a single product, you're paying tens of thousands in tax. So how she can review business rates and change those more quickly to help our high streets.
And actually, you.
Know the other thing is the quickest way to grow our economy is through trade. Our biggest trading partner, the EU, is still really hard to move goods over the border there. What is the government doing more quickly to help businesses who are trading around the world.
Okay, Chavon, thank you very much for joining us. Chavonne Havlan, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce,