Mr Healey’s predecessor, Ms Reeves, announced a combined £80billion of tax rises across her two Budgets.
This included a £25billion increase in employer National Insurance, with the rate rising from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent.
Major employers said the change added millions of pounds to their costs and made it harder to hire staff and invest.
Hospitality businesses were hit particularly hard, as they also faced increases to the minimum wage and business rates.
Mr Healey defended Ms Reeves’s decisions, blaming what he called the Conservatives’ economic “dereliction of duty”. However, he acknowledged that the changes had put businesses under greater pressure.
Mr Healey acknowledged that companies had been squeezed from multiple directions in recent years. “I have recognised that in recent times there’s been a lot of pressure: employment law, regulation, tax, input costs, supply chains,” he said.