‘We’re already at peak government inflicted costs’ BT chief warns Chancellor
The boss of BT has joined a chorus of chief executives urging the Chancellor not to raise the costs of doing business at her forthcoming Budget, warning the telecoms industry was “already at peak government inflicted costs.”
In an on-stage interview with City PM at the Connected Britain conference on Wednesday, Allison Kirkby said: “We pay in business rates, energy levies and other costs associated with regulation and compliance ten times the amount our peers pay in countries like Germany and the Netherlands.”
Kirkby said investors “need certainty that they’re going to get a return on that investment and they get that certainty through stability on regulatory and fiscal policy.”
“We’re going into what could be a very difficult Budget for the Chancellor,” she said.
“We’ve got to ensure that [for] these massive infrastructure bills that will accrue billions of value to the economy in the coming years, investors and citizens and companies get the return on investment.”
Dwindling growth expectations
The BT chief’s remarks come as businesses brace for another painful round of tax hikes due to be unveiled at the Budget in the coming weeks.
Economists expect Chancellor Rachel Reeves to have to raise at least another £20bn in November to stay within her fiscal rules, with businesses preparing to bear the brunt of the extra costs after Labour ruled out changes to income tax in its manifesto.
It comes after the boss of e-commerce firm AO World warned rising inflation and Labour’s legislation on workers’ rights could push the UK into recession.
“Business leaders that I speak to are looking at how they can take people out,” John Roberts said in an interview with the BBC.
“Costs walk into businesses on legs – those legs have got much more expensive. It is much more difficult to recruit people, it’s much less flexible than it has ever been to recruit people.
“We’ve lived through a few recessions in the last 25 years – I think we’re heading into another one.”
The OECD this week pointed to “uncertainty” and a “tighter fiscal stance…anticipated to drag on external and domestic demand” as it slashed Britain’s growth expectations from 1.4 per cent in 2025 to just one per cent next year, and predicted UK inflation would be the highest in the G7 economies at 3.5 per cent.
Kirkby said the UK was “behind and we need to catch up” on certain areas of telecoms and mobile infrastructure upgrades relative to European peers, urging planning reform from government “to ensure we’re encouraging the build out of mobile technologies faster.”