Phones 4u founder John Caudwell and former Marks & Spencer boss Lord Stuart Rose have joined over 150 business leaders & parliamentarians calling on ministers to stop the creep of taxes on Britain’s businesses.
The two men are the most prominent of a wave of influential backers of founder group Helm’s Stop the Creep campaign, alongside Christos Angelides, CEO of fashion retailer Reiss, and Charlie Mullins, who founded Pimlico Plumbers.
In throwing their weight behind the campaign, they join a growing coalition of Britain’s business leaders calling on the Government to make the Autumn Budget the moment it delivers on its pro-growth promises.
The campaign, led by Helm, the UK’s largest community of scale-up founders, calls on the Chancellor to halt and reverse the creeping taxes that punish founders for scaling their businesses.
Stop the Creep urges the Chancellor to reverse the rise in Employers’ National Insurance, restore the entrepreneurial reliefs that have been cut, and set out a clear, stable roadmap for business taxation so founders can invest with confidence.
Caudwell, who built Phones 4u before selling his business group for £1.5 billion, switched his support from the Conservatives to Labour at the 2024 general election, but has since said he was ‘misled’ by the party’s pro-business promises. Over the weekend, Caudwell told The Telegraph: “I do not think the Labour Party is electable” and that he would back any party that seeks to turbocharge growth.
Lord Stuart Rose, one of the most respected figures in British business, served as chief executive of Marks & Spencer and chairman of Asda. Mullins sold Pimlico Plumbers in 2021 and has already left the UK for Spain over the increasing tax burden.
The signatories also warn of a “death by a thousand cuts” for Britain’s wealth creators, with the new backers joining Luke Johnson, Gail’s Bakery chair, Johnnie Boden, founder of Boden, and dozens of politicians, including Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith.
The intervention comes as attention turns to Chancellor John Healey’s first Budget on 28 October.
Polling of business leaders published by Helm earlier this month found just six per cent consider Prime Minister Andy Burnham to be pro-business, with more than four in five expecting trading conditions to stay the same or get worse. The Budget is the Government’s opportunity to close that gap.
Andreas Adamides, CEO of Helm, said: “John Caudwell wanted this Government to succeed. Lord Rose has spent half a century at the top of British business. Charlie Mullins has already left. That is what training entrepreneurs for export looks like.
“When founders of this calibre unite around one cause the Government should listen, because these are exactly the people it needs on side to deliver the growth it has promised.
“Britain’s founders are ready and willing to work with the Government to deliver on its growth ambitions. Andy Burnham says he is pro-growth, and we take him at his word, but his first Budget this autumn will be the real test of this commitment.
“Stopping the creep of taxes on wealth creators, and giving business the certainty it needs to invest, would be the clearest possible signal that this Government wants Britain’s founders to build and succeed here.”
Lord Stuart Rose of Monewden, Chairman of Zenith Vehicles & former M&S Chief Executive, said: “I have been in Business for over 50 years and have never been more concerned about the cost of doing business and building businesses that are financially sustainable for the long term. Employment costs and regulations are now serious impediments to growth and employment.
“Employers’ National Insurance alone took a hundred million pounds a year out of one supermarket. Multiply that across the economy and it is easy to see why investment has stalled. The good news is that this is within the Government’s gift to fix.
“This is not about special treatment. If the Government wants businesses to create jobs and growth, the Budget is the moment to ease the burden on the act of creating them.”
Helm’s members run scale-up businesses with a combined revenue of more than £8 billion and contribute £1 billion a year in tax. The average Helm member is the CEO of a company with an annual turnover of £21 million.