Keir Starmer under fire after abandoning Tory attempts to ease the burden on business – on the same day he promised to end red tape for businesses

Mr Keir Starmer was attacked last night for abandoning Tory attempts to ease the administrative burden on businesses – on the same day he promised to end bureaucracy.

The Labor Government quietly announced yesterday that it would not move forward with proposals put forward by Rishi Sunak to help small businesses.

The Department for Business and Commerce (DBT) said plans to simplify company reporting, announced in March, were “not being taken forward at this time”.

They would have increased the threshold for companies classified as medium-sized from 250 to 500 employees, saving many heads of small businesses from the obligation to present detailed accounts, as well as exempting them from having to write “strategic reports” analyzing the previous year.

But at the same time, the Prime Minister told business leaders at his International Investment Summit that he was determined to “eliminate the bureaucracy that blocks investment”, claiming that where regulation is “unnecessarily” holding back growth, then 'we will get rid of it'.

The Labor Government quietly announced yesterday that it would not move forward with the proposals put forward by Rishi Sunak (photo)

Shadow Business Secretary Kevin Hollinrake (pictured) said investment and productivity will suffer

Last night Shadow Business Secretary Kevin Hollinrake said: 'Keir Starmer's lack of understanding and inconsistency is quite appalling, he says one thing and does the opposite.

“In the face of a looming wave of red tape, Starmer's claims of a bonfire of trade regulations would be ridiculous if they weren't so serious.

“Due to the Labor Party’s flawed, anti-business, pro-union approach, investment will fall, productivity will suffer and jobs will be lost. This must change.

A summary of responses to the “simpler business reporting” consultation, published yesterday, revealed that the majority of respondents agreed with the former Conservative administration's plans.

One family business said: 'Classifying a company with 251 employees as a 'large company', and therefore subjecting it to the same reporting and regulatory regimes as a company with 10,000 employees, does not reflect the reality of business life or resources. '

But the reform was opposed by the unions' umbrella body, raising suspicions among Conservatives that this may have contributed to the Labor Party's decision not to move forward with it.

The TUC said in the DBT consultation: 'Businesses have significant and important impacts on their stakeholders and on society, the environment and the economy more broadly.

“These impacts constitute an important part of the potential benefits, disbenefits or harms that companies create. As with financial reporting, non-financial reporting is an essential part of holding companies accountable.'

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