Britain’s new Chancellor has told the country’s business owners that their pain is now firmly on his desk. In his first major broadcast interview since taking the job, John Healey used an appearance on Bloomberg TV to promise that he is “as concerned about the cost of doing business as I am about the cost of living”.
It is a deliberate reframing. It has been two years since ministers have been building their message on the domestic budget. Healey wants entrepreneurs to know how important density is to their firms.
“To British businesses, to British entrepreneurs, to British investors: I will support you as your Chancellor,” he said. “I will support you in financial services, technology, retail, industry, all sectors of the economy.”
The pledge comes at a time of panic. Business groups have welcomed Healey’s move to the Treasury, demanding warm words followed by action on the debt pile.
Healey named the culprits specifically: “tax, energy, supply chain costs, and labor”. Each will be accompanied by owner-managers. UK industrial energy prices remain among the highest in the developed world, a structural drag on manufacturers and any strongly operating plant or buildings. Employment has cooled since the rise of National Employers Insurance, and energy and tax bills burdening small businesses have dominated the trade union’s coffers for months.
The Councilor agreed to the situation. “I know things were not easy,” he said. “We talk a lot in government about the cost of living, and it is. People have been facing increasing pressures… but so have you all.”
He continued: “I know that big and small businesses feel really stressed.”
That squeeze is not mysterious. While the cost of living has fallen, with inflation reaching 2.6 percent in June, the cost of doing business has proven to be strong. Energy contracts, wage bills and supplier prices are not yet back in step.
Healey’s answer is a close working relationship. “I want us to deepen the relationship between our government, the relationship between our Treasury and businesses,” he said. “I want to deepen based on a shared desire for Britain, not just a desire to succeed in this square mile, but in every part of the country, or as the Prime Minister says, in every postcode.”
For SMEs, testing whether rhetoric translates into policy. Warm words about supporting business are cheap; low energy bills, light tax burden and tight supply chains are absent. The councilor has set his own expenses by setting business expenses and living expenses. Owner managers will now be waiting for the Budget to show us.
The direction of travel, at least, is clear. The Chancellor, who cited tax, energy and labor as pressures that keep business owners awake, has identified the problem well. Whether the Ministry of Finance is writing a doctor’s prescription is a question that all firms will be asking now.
