Britain cannot afford for John Healey’s Budget to be another tax raid on job creators

Added together, they are costing this country and costing the next generation. Talk to business owners anywhere in the country and you hear the same story. The question used to be, ‘Who do we hire next?’ Now it’s, ‘Can we afford to replace the person who just left?’

Last week the Office for National Statistics (OBR) reported that job vacancies fell by 21,000 over the summer. It said the fall was concentrated in smaller businesses and often linked to the rising cost of employing people.

There are 111,000 fewer people in a paying job than a year ago. So what changed? Not one thing, but a pile of them, all landing on employers at the same time.

First came the rise in Employers’ National Insurance. Since April 2025, firms have paid 15 per cent instead of 13.8 per cent. Worse, they now start paying on earnings above £5,000 a year instead of £9,100. This mean that part-time and lower-paid jobs are hit harder – exactly the roles that give young people their first step on the career ladder.

Then, this April, the National Living Wage rose again, to £12.71 an hour. In 1999, the minimum wage was around 46 per cent of the median wage. Today it is 66 per cent. A business can only hire where a job pays its way.

When a young person with no experience costs the same as someone with years behind them, the choice for an employer is obvious, and the first rung of the ladder disappears. This has built a situation where to get your first job you need experience, but to get experience you need a job.

And for family businesses, the changes to inheritance tax relief mean that passing the business to your children can now trigger a tax bill of up to 20 per cent.

For family businesses with value locked into physical assets, that can mean selling up rather than handing on. Now reports suggest that the Chancellor is weighing yet another tax on owners who pass their businesses to the next generation. Family firms are the backbone of our economy and need to be treasured.

As President of the Jobs Foundation, I get to talk to businesses around the country every single week. This is their message to the Chancellor. First, do no more harm: no new taxes on employment, and no new raid on family succession.

Second, help employers take a chance on the next generation by making it cheaper to hire a young person. Our NEET Zero campaign is calling for Employers’ National Insurance Contribution relief for all hires under 25.

Mr Healey says he wants to back Britain’s “b****y-minded entrepreneurs”. On Wednesday, he can prove it. The most important jobs in this country are the ones that haven’t been created yet. Whether they ever are is now up to him.