Budget: Small and Medium-sized Businesses

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for her support for what we announced yesterday in terms of apprenticeships. We are investing £1.5 billion over the spending review period for investment in employment and skills support, including £725 million for the growth and skills levy to help support apprenticeships for young people and to fully fund SME apprenticeships for under-25s. We will also introduce new reforms to simplify the apprenticeship system and make it more efficient when short courses are introduced from April 2026.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, as someone who champions SMEs and regularly has my amendments rejected by the Government, I welcome some of what the Minister has set out. It will, however, be offset by the increase in dividend tax, which has been mentioned, and the negative effect of wider tax increases. Our main disappointment with the Budget, as has already been said, is the disappearance of growth as the principal objective, with no significant positive impact by 2030 according to the OBR. Does he agree that this neglect is particularly bad for SMEs, and can he answer the two questions on the overall impact of the Budget on SMEs now?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. No, I do not accept that the Budget is bad overall for growth and for SMEs. As I have said, the OBR has upgraded Britain’s growth forecast for this year from 1% to 1.5%. The noble Baroness’s policy of going back to austerity and cutting spending by £47 billion would be exactly the wrong thing to do at this point for growth. We need to maintain investment in our economy. In this Budget, we are cutting inflation, cutting borrowing every year of the forecast and keeping interest rates down. We are maintaining higher levels of public investment for decades, building houses, roads, railways and energy infrastructure, and backing our fastest-growing companies. She mentioned growth. She may have seen this morning that JP Morgan, the global investment bank, announced a $10 billion investment in the UK with its intention to build its new landmark tower in London. Jamie Dimon, the CEO, said:

“The UK Government's priority of economic growth has been a critical factor in helping us make this decision”.