This budget is economic torture. Make no mistake it will have a chilling effect on the economy and represents the polar opposite of the economic growth producing policies promised by Labour when they came into office. Whether it is the thumb screw of enhanced property tax, the ice bath of frozen tax thresholds, or the slow strangulation of family businesses through inheritance taxes, all of Rachel Reeves tax measures eventually damage family businesses, directly or indirectly, because they damage the economy.

Worse still a vicious cycle of economic decline is being created. The chilling of enterprise and innovation will make everyone poorer as these are the things that are the pre requisites of growth. Taking money from individuals and private businesses to give to an unproductive public sector, with flatlining productivity growth, is a recipe for economic decline. To cap it Rayner’s employment law will kill jobs and mad Ed’s Net Zero will destroy industry.

The writing is on the wall. The last year, since Labour came into office, has seen higher than forecast inflation, higher than forecast unemployment, a flight of talent from the UK, high energy costs, no improvement in productivity and the portion of spending by the state has continued to increase leading to a bloated public sector.

The British economy is stagnating and business confidence is low. The Chancellor needs to urgently adopt new policies to drive economic growth and to get Britain out of the mess it is in.

Rather than this disastrous budget the Government should immediately end the green levies being imposed on the private sector to reduce the cost of Net Zero and they must accelerate the deployment of small Nuclear facilities across the UK. In the meantime Britain must be allowed to exploit our natural gas, frack and drill for oil.

The Government must also reverse its mad decision to refuse the exploration of new oil and gas sites in the North Sea. This will generate wealth and tax, boosting the economy and help to reduce the cost of energy supporting business and households.

There should be no new money for the public sector until productivity has increased. The Government cannot keep hurling money at the public services without any significant improvement in outcomes.

The size of the state must be reduced as it sucks up resource, costs the private sector money and crowds out investment. In the medium term, the Government must reduce state spending to below 40% of GDP within the decade.

The National Insurance increases last year have driven inflation and unemployment. The IBN opposed the move last year and we reiterate our call on the Government to reverse the National Insurance increases to allow businesses to expand and invest and employ new staff.

Above all the Government needs to create the conditions for investment led growth. The UK has suffered with chronic underinvestment for decades and we are now paying the price. Crucial to investment is profit.

Anything that reduces profit will impact investment. Also business needs access to long-term capital and the tax system needs to incentivise long-term investment to drive growth in the UK.

On this budget specifically, the cut in business rates for small businesses is to be welcomed, but as with every giveaway in this budget the money has to be found from tax or borrowing, itself leading to more tax in the future.

The only way out of this doom-loop is real economic growth which the Chancellor seems incapable of grasping. Public sector spending is a cost, not growth.

While the Chancellor seems to have woken up to the damage that Net Zero fanaticism is having on Britain she has not gone far enough.

Charging for EV road miles will be a wake-up call for those foolish enough to buy them with all the mess of child labour extracting rare earths and the disposal of toxic batteries.

Similarly the cut-back on green levies should have gone further, removing all subsidies so that the true cost of green energy becomes clear. With the UK paying the highest electricity prices of developed nations, enough is enough!

The Chancellor claimed no return to austerity but all she meant was no cut in public spending. She has produced austerity amongst taxpayers and business, in other words practically everyone except those on welfare.

Almost all of Reeves’s interventions – minimum wage, taxes on pensions, savings taxes, tourist taxes etc – add up to a jobs tax and will lead to higher unemployment, especially amongst the young, particularly when combined with the chilling effect of the proposed Employment Law.

A generation hit by lockdowns will now be hit by this job-destroying Government. The only saving grace is that it would be even worse under the Greens and Lib Dems.