Burnham Promises Businesses Nearly £800 Million a Year of Relief in Pre-Budget Red-Tape Offensive

A pre-Budget promise of breathing space

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has promised British businesses savings worth almost £800 million a year through simpler paperwork and extended suspensions of import tariffs, setting out the measures five days before Chancellor John Healey delivers the government’s first annual Budget statement on Wednesday.

According to Reuters, Mr Burnham said on Friday that the package would give companies “breathing space to grow” by cutting what he described as unnecessary bureaucracy. The Treasury estimates that making compliance guidance simpler and easier to follow for small firms would save £290 million, while extending the suspension of import tariffs on more than 250 products used by businesses would save up to £155 million, according to the Press Association.

Two further measures complete the published breakdown: reducing duplicative reporting burdens for asset management firms, expected to save £105 million, and cutting red tape for businesses involved in buying and selling homes, worth a further £116 million to firms in the property transaction chain. The remainder of the savings towards the headline £800 million figure will be set out in the Budget itself, the government said.

“If you run a business, you want to spend your time serving your customers, creating jobs and growing your firm, not filling in unnecessary forms,” Mr Burnham said, according to the Press Association. “It’s not right that pointless bureaucracy gets in the way of people working hard to build something that matters to their high street. So we’re getting government off their backs and giving businesses the breathing space to grow. Because when businesses succeed, they create good jobs, strengthen their communities and bring growth to every part of the country.”

The Chancellor echoed the theme. “British firms are fed up with form-filling and pointless paperwork that eats into valuable time and money when they simply want to get on with running their businesses,” Mr Healey said. “That is why we are cutting unnecessary bureaucracy and giving businesses the breathing space they need to invest, innovate and create good jobs.”

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds added a flourish of his own: “A baker should be filling pasties, not forms.”

Tariff suspensions extended for a year

The trade component of the package will be closely watched by manufacturers and retailers. Import tariff suspensions across sectors including chemicals, plastics, automotive and food and beverages — which had been due to expire at the end of December — are to be extended for another year, the Treasury said. The extension covers more than 250 products used by British businesses and is expected to save up to £155 million.

According to the Press Association, Mr Burnham and Mr Healey met small business leaders at Number 10 on Friday, alongside Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and representatives including the Federation of Small Businesses, where they accepted recommendations from the Small Business Taskforce.

The measures form part of a wider government commitment to cut back the regulatory administration businesses are required to do by 25 per cent by the end of this Parliament, ministers said.

The Budget backdrop

The announcement lands in a tight fiscal frame. According to the Press Association, government borrowing rose by more than expected to £24.5 billion last month, underlining the constraints on the public finances ahead of the Chancellor’s first Budget.

Mr Healey has said the Budget will aim to ease cost pressures on companies and households alike, and has ruled out increasing capital gains tax, amid concerns such a move could hamper economic growth. According to the Press Association, he is expected to increase taxes on banks, while pledging to reduce the cost of doing business and help households with the high cost of living — though his room for manoeuvre will be limited by the fragile state of the public finances.

The package follows closely on the heels of another pre-Budget intervention. On Thursday, Mr Burnham announced changes to the “Green Book”, the Treasury framework used to judge public investment projects, so that projects in the same local area can be assessed together rather than individually, according to Reuters. The reforms, which build on Mr Healey’s decision to cut the Green Book’s headline discount rate from 3.5 per cent to 3 per cent, are designed to make it easier for long-term infrastructure projects outside London to pass Treasury appraisal. They will be set out in full in the Budget, alongside a roadmap for fiscal devolution giving regional leaders control over a share of some national taxes.

Reaction

The Conservatives gave the package a sceptical reception. Shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith said, according to the Press Association: “Labour have finally admitted that endless red tape is hammering businesses and killing jobs across the country. But despite warnings from business and the Conservatives, Labour pushed ahead with Angela Rayner’s union-inspired, 330-page Unemployment Act, which is only making the situation worse and has created a youth jobs emergency. John Healey must get a grip in his Budget next week. He must back our Conservative plans to cut welfare and cut taxes so we can get Britain working again.”

The government’s case, by contrast, is that the measures answer a complaint ministers say they have heard repeatedly from employers of all sizes: that the time and money spent satisfying regulatory requirements is itself a drag on growth.

Analysis: Why It Matters

The pre-Budget sweetener, with conditions attached

There is nothing accidental about the timing. With Mr Healey’s first Budget five days away and borrowing figures pointing in the wrong direction, the £800 million package is designed to get a pro-business headline on the record before the fiscal arithmetic takes over. Announcing savings for business now creates a buffer: when the Budget does arrive with its likely tax rises on banks and its limited room for household giveaways, the government can point to something already delivered for employers. It is a classic pre-Budget sweetener — but one that conspicuously defers “the remainder” of the measures to Budget day itself, meaning the headline is bigger than the detail published so far.

Small firms are the real audience

Note where the money goes. The single largest component — £290 million — is aimed squarely at small firms through simpler compliance guidance, and the Friday meeting at Number 10 was built around small business leaders and the Small Business Taskforce. That is a deliberate political choice. Large corporates have compliance departments; a business of five people does not. Regulatory friction is felt most acutely at the bottom of the size curve, and the government’s “baker filling pasties” framing tells you exactly who it wants to be seen helping: the high street, the workshop, the family firm. Whether simpler guidance materialises as genuinely less administration or merely reorganised administration will be the test of the pledge.

The tariff extension is the most tangible piece

Of the four published components, extending tariff suspensions is arguably the most concrete. Unlike “streamlined reporting requirements”, which are estimates of avoided costs, tariff suspensions are measurable: duties that were going to return in January on more than 250 industrial and consumer inputs will now not return for another year. For sectors like chemicals, plastics, automotive and food production — where imported inputs are a meaningful share of costs — this is real, immediate and quantifiable. The open question is what happens in a year: another extension would start to look permanent, while letting them lapse would mean a sudden cost shock.

The numbers deserve a second look

It is worth saying plainly what the figures are. £290 million in “simplified compliance guidance”, £155 million in tariff suspensions, £105 million in eased asset-management reporting, £116 million in property-transaction savings — these are Treasury estimates of costs avoided, not cash returned to businesses. They rest on assumptions about how firms currently spend their time and how behaviour will change. Such estimates are standard practice, but they are also the easiest part of any regulatory package to over-claim. Independent scrutiny of the methodology — when the Budget fleshes out the remainder — will matter more than the headline.

Context: a government warming up its growth engine

Zoom out and the package reads as one chapter in a broader pre-Budget growth story. In the space of a week, ministers have announced everyday-fixes campaigns on parking and public transport nuisances, a Green Book overhaul aimed at regional investment, and now a business red-tape package — all ahead of a Budget that will set the fiscal course. Taken together, the pattern is clear: the government wants to be seen removing friction wherever it can find it, precisely because the big levers of fiscal policy are constrained. When borrowing overshoots and headroom is thin, regulatory relief is one of the few growth instruments that does not show up as a cost to the Exchequer. The Budget on Wednesday will show whether that strategy is matched by the substance.

What to Watch Next

1. The Budget on Wednesday, 28 October: Mr Healey will set out the remainder of the £800 million package, plus the expected bank tax increases and any help for households with the cost of living. Watch how the specifics compare with Friday’s headline.
2. The methodology: Expect analysts and business groups to ask for the workings behind the £290 million, £105 million and £116 million estimates — and whether they survive contact with reality.
3. The 25 per cent target: The pledge to cut regulatory administration by a quarter by the end of this Parliament needs legislation, timetables and milestones. Without them it is an aspiration, not a policy.
4. The Green Book reforms: Announced Thursday alongside the budget trailer, the shift to “place-based” assessment and the fiscal devolution roadmap could matter more for regional growth than Friday’s package. The detail lands in the Budget.
5. The political response: The Conservatives have already framed the package against Labour’s employment legislation. How loudly business groups endorse the measures — and whether small firms feel a difference — will decide whether the “breathing space” line survives its first contact with the real economy.

Sources

• Reuters: “UK government promises to save businesses £800 million in paperwork and tariffs” (23 October 2026)
• Morningstar / Alliance News (Press Association): “UK Chancellor unveils plans to cut GBP800 million in business red tape” (23 October 2026)
• Gazette & Herald (Press Association): “Healey plans to slash ‘pointless paperwork’ in bid to save businesses £800m” (23 October 2026)