Our 2025 Autumn Budget Submission
Read our Budget Submission in full here.
This budget is truly make-or-break for both the Government and the startup community.
Received well, it could reset the dark mood music surrounding the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, and help to soften the blow of what will likely be a very difficult set of local elections in May next year.
However, if it is received badly, and the gilt markets get jittery, it’s not an exaggeration to say that this will be the most perilous time for Keir Starmer’s leadership since he became Leader of the Labour Party in 2020.
For startups, we hear from founders day in and day our how critical budget day will be. With that in mind, we’ve approached our budget submission with two clear messages.
First, the government has maxed out on taxes for founders and investors. In policy wonk terms this is known as the Laffer Curve – an economic model that shows the relationship between tax rates and government tax revenue, and argues there is an “optimal” tax rate that maximizes government revenue.
If tax rates are increased beyond this point, total revenue may actually decrease. Following the Budget, we have hit or surpassed that point across a number of measures.
Revenue was raised by hiking up, or reducing the generosity of, some of the policies that matter most to founders and startups: NICs, Capital Gains Tax and Business Asset Disposal Relief (formerly known as Entrepreneurs Relief). Many founders now feel uncertain about their role in the Government’s growth agenda, and we have seen a growing number question whether they should remain in the UK.
And it’s not just founders. You may now have seen recent suggestions that HMT will introduce national insurance contributions for LLPs (meaning not just lawyers and accountants, but VCs too). These were floated after our submission and would deal a fatal blow to UK VC (more on this below…)
But not causing problems won’t be sufficient. So in addition to that first message – that the tax landscape for founders cannot worsen – we’ve also made clear that we should see a range of measures that actually make building a startup and scaling it in the UK easier.
We’ve put together a range of measures that will not only energise our tech sector and contribute to the economic growth the Government is looking to focus on. We’ve had some really constructive conversations with the Government over recent weeks – fingers crossed they were listening come budget day…