Small businesses want to simplify regulations and slash red tape after election

The firm said that 40 per cent of more than 1,100 small to medium sized enterprises surveyed wanted the winner of Thursday’s General Election to simplify regulations and slash red tape.

Lower taxes were demanded by 35 per cent, while 20 per cent of SMEs said they wanted April’s hikes in business rates to be reversed and 27 per cent wanted interest rates to be kept at record lows.

Hundreds of thousands of firms, large and small, across the country were left with higher business rates bills in April, after the first increase in the tax for seven years.

Hitachi Capital managing director Gavin Wraith-Carter said: “Their shopping list for a new Government gives a clear picture of the issues they want tackled to ensure that small businesses can continue to be the driving force behind the British economy.

“Simplified regulation, revisiting business rates, lower taxes and holding interest rates are big issues that, tackled well, will help SMEs believe they can grow.”

Mistakes by Prime Minister Theresa May have eroded the Conservatives’ huge lead in the polls, raising the prospect of a hung parliament.

IHS Markit analyst Simon Colvin said if that were to happen, it would send shares tumbling to the benefit of short sellers, people betting on shares falling in value.

He said: “Short sellers have studied the script and are disproportionately targeting UK firms that earn a large portion of their revenue from the British Isles.”