More Details Emerge on Investment Zones – Lower General Rate of Tax

Business Matters

The chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, is expected to announce the creation of a network of low-tax, low-regulation investment zones in an emergency budget on Friday.

Planning regulations will be relaxed in up to 12 places earmarked for this status, and taxes will be cut to incentivise investment.

The [Froday] announcement, which is expected to take deregulation further than the post-Brexit freeports set up by Boris Johnson’s government, will be part of a package that will also see the rise in national insurance contributions abandoned, a planned increase in corporation tax scrapped and green levies temporarily removed from fuel bills.

Kwarteng wants to use the statement to show that the government is delivering quickly on the promises made by Liz Truss during her campaign for the Conservative leadership, when she said that investment zones would be at the heart of her plan to boost growth. A formal budget is due later.

The West Midlands, the Thames estuary, the Tees Valley, West Yorkshire and Norfolk are among the places where the zones may be sited. According to the plans set out by Truss in the summer, in each area there will be a central region, where regulations and planning rules will be eased to encourage industrial, commercial and residential development, and a periphery where the planning rules will be streamlined for housing.

According to one report, the Treasury is considering whether, as well as offering lower taxes for businesses operating in the zones, it could also offer lower personal taxes for people living or working there.

The policy is likely to focus on England in the first instance, although Truss wants to work with the devolved governments to set up investment zones in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, too.

So living in South Yorkshire I will pay more tax than if I lived in South Yprkshire, even though it had a higher GDP/head and higher house porices. Good way to lose votes from the high tax zones outside these areas.

By the way what are the planning rules which discpourage development, apart from of cpourse lack of local plans where teh government has accepted the fake wailingand special pleading of council leaders not to do them. What precisely of the planning rules which need streamling, again of course part from the unique lack of zoning in England and the failure of its failed system of disncentivising local authorities from making local plans quickly? Never ever mentions what they are, its just a libertarian shibboleth, an act of raw faith, a straw man.

It seems there was a briefing op over weekend starting with Sun on Sunday

She will also announce new ‘investment zones’ –  ultra low tax and low regulation areas of the country.

Businesses that move to and invest in these areas will have their levies slashed and be freed from red tape – like overzealous eco rules that can block new development.

No habitat directives here – even though its the law- how much raw sewage can you dump in the Thames Estauary – Southern Water will be pleased they can forget teh record fines and dump as much as they like – and be awarded for it with lower taxes. That sounds like a popular policy if you ask me.