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Labour’s Makerfield by-election candidate and Greater Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham has announced he will consider cutting employers’ national insurance contributions to support small businesses and high street retailers.
The policy initiative, launched during his campaign for the Makerfield by-election, marks a direct challenge to the tax strategies introduced by prime minister Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves.
In an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight, the candidate stated that “Labour have got it wrong on small businesses,” and proposed raising the threshold for paying business rates to exempt independent retail, hospitality, and leisure firms from the tax.
Burnham also outlined plans to introduce a 20% business rates cut for community venues including pubs, clubs, and live music spaces.
The suggested tax cuts would be financed by introducing higher financial levies on large warehouses operated by online retail corporations and targeting the owners of vacant commercial properties.
Burnham told the BBC: “I have said that I thought the weight of the burden on employers’ national insurance wasn’t the right decision. However, it was the decision. There is more that needs to be done to listen to the voice of small business, and as I’ve gone around this constituency, I’m hearing it a lot. People just feel they are at the kind of limits of what they can do.
“I am willing to be honest about where we have fallen short and say that my party has got this wrong in government. They have undervalued the contribution these businesses make to our livelihoods and our communities.”
