Rachel Reeves has declared that she has “unfinished business” as chancellor, singling out fiscal devolution as the policy she is most determined to see through, in remarks that will be read closely by a business community bracing for a change at the top of government.
Speaking at the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference in London on Thursday, Reeves pointed to the handing of tax-raising powers to local leaders as the area of “unfinished business” she wants to complete. The intervention comes at a delicate moment, with Andy Burnham set to enter Downing Street next month following Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation on Monday, and with the City still guessing over who will take the keys to No 11.
For the SME owners who make up the bulk of the chambers’ membership, the politics matter less than the policy signal. A chancellor talking openly about devolving revenue, and a prime minister-in-waiting who built his reputation on it, points to a meaningful shift in where decisions about local growth, and local taxation, will be taken.
The visitor levy and the case for going local
The former mayor of Greater Manchester is moving quickly to assemble a programme for government that is widely expected to push more powers and revenue away from Westminster. Reeves made clear she is travelling in the same direction.
“The area where there’s certainly unfinished business is on fiscal devolution,” she said. “And I set out in last year’s Budget a consultation, for example, on the visitor levy, which is something that mayoral combined authorities will have responsibility for, moving us more in line with the US and Europe that have single visitor levies on hotel bookings, for example, and then that money being invested in the local area.”
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