Autumn Budget 2025

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, I received a wonderful birthday present on 26 November: the Budget, with taxes going up by £26.6 billion on top of the £40 billion that we had last year, leading to 38% of GDP, the highest level that we have known. The UK economy growth rate has averaged 1.5% since 2024. Inflation, which was 1.7% in September 2024, is now 3.8%.

I was president of the CBI, and our chief executive, Rain Newton-Smith, said the Chancellor’s

“scattergun approach to tax risks leaving the economy stuck in neutral”.

The good news is the Government have listened to this House on the Employment Rights Bill, and they have said that they will have a six-month period as opposed to day one, which is not as good as two years, but at least the Government have listened.

There is greater complexity. Deloitte noted 88 new tax measures and the IoD did a survey of business leaders which found that 80% feel negatively about the Autumn Budget, up from 67% after the 2024 Budget. I am a trustee of Policy Exchange, which described it as a “transition Budget”. Then there was a surprisingly positive article from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph:

“In defence of Reeves, the future is not that scary”.


He said:

“Public investment has averaged 1.6pc of GDP since the late 1970s against 3pc or so for our peers and 4pc or more for stellar outperformers … Labour is raising it even more to 2.6pc of GDP”.


We need that investment desperately. He also said:

“Productivity is about to soar in advanced companies open to Al diffusion. The UK has the world’s third largest AI industry by a wide margin and is the data centre capital of Europe”.


We are a very innovative country; the WIPO Global Innovation Index places us sixth in the world. The IMF says that AI could boost productivity by 1.5% a year if fully adopted, and the French Artificial Intelligence Commission says that AI is not just an incremental efficiency gain in how we do things; it vaults to another level. Does the Minister agree?

I am chair of the International Chamber of Commerce UK, the ICC being the largest business organisation in the world, with 45 million businesses. There was no mention whatever of trade in this Budget, and that is surprising, because trade amounts to 60% of the UK economy. We can invest in digital public infrastructure, and we should invest in digital trade, because companies doing that cut costs by 80% and improve productivity by 60%. I have just returned from speaking at the B20 in Johannesburg, before the G20. I was a co-chair of the digital task force, and we have managed to persuade the G20 Governments to invest in public digital infrastructure.

UKHospitality made the following point:

“Many parliamentarians understood from the Chancellor’s statement that the Budget would ease pressure on high street businesses”.


However, will the Minister acknowledge the reality that when the relief falls away, there is a huge increase in the rates? The BBPA—I am the founder of Cobra beer—says that

“both small and medium-sized pubs will see substantial increases in their rates bills, driven by higher RVs being applied to only slightly lower multipliers”.

Does the Minister agree that many pubs are facing increased bills?

In conclusion, Brent Hoberman, my friend from Founders Forum, has said:

“The Chancellor promised to listen to UK entrepreneurs. And yesterday’s budget was a first step towards delivering on this promise”.


Whether it is the EMI scheme reform, scale-up finance, tax relief for companies listing in the UK, it is really good news that the Government are listening. There is no exit tax, as was mentioned. The British Business Bank will deploy £5 billion in growth-stage funds and there are listings reforms with stamp duty relief. This is fantastic, and there is going to be a review for what more can be done for entrepreneurs. I am so glad the Government want to talk and listen to us, because we are ready to help. These are steps in the right direction. As Brent Hoberman put it,

“we need to think bigger, bolder, and longer-term, backing our most ambitious entrepreneurs to drive economic growth”.