Worry about the start-ups and the SMEs not the wealthy individuals moving abroad, writes John Caudwell

17 September 2024, 15:15 | Updated: 17 September 2024, 15:20

By John Caudwell

@JohnDCaudwell

As the saying goes, there are two things in life we know to be certain: death and taxes.

A related certainty on taxes? Whenever Labour looks likely to govern, the media will start obsessively asking wealthy individuals whether higher taxes would drive them out of the country.

When they find one who says yes, like “Britain’s richest plumber” Charlie Mullins last week, the headlines – suggesting it’s a sign that all wealthy people are fleeing - write themselves.

I’ve been obsessively asked myself and, ahead of the 2019 election, quotes I gave generated similar headlines. I may well have quit the country if Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell had moved into Downing Street, but my alarm was not for personal tax reasons.

I determined, with those two in charge, we were at risk of taking a turn that would have been disastrous for the UK, our economy, and for the attractiveness of Britain as a place to do business.

I am extremely patriotic. I love this country. I am proud to have built my businesses and my family here. I am proud to call the UK home and to pay my taxes here. Taxes are necessary to fund the NHS, education, defence and all the services that society depends on.

If we could flip the narrative so that wealthy people were applauded for paying their taxes, creating jobs and contributing to society, rather than punished or demonised, this perennial media obsession would be a non-starter.

Now this isn’t to say that taxes can never be too high. An extreme or unfair hike might make me consider moving to warmer, sunnier climes where taxes are lower – but I think the same is true for anyone in a position to be able to live abroad. Those who would emigrate over incremental increases in the higher rate tax band probably would have gone already.

It comes down to this: I believe paying taxes is part of a patriotic duty to reinvest in the country and services that have done so much for all of us.

I want to see the country succeed. That’s why I’ve devoted so much time and effort to trying to get the economy growing again.

Did you know that our GDP per capita is virtually the same as on the eve of the 2007/8 Financial Crisis? In all that time, we have not really grown. Now let’s look across the Atlantic at the US – they’ve grown 40% in that time.

I’ve sponsored a project at a Westminster-based think tank, the Council on Geostrategy. The project, Caudwell Strong Britain, is about exploring how we can build a greener, more competitive and resilient science and technology base in the UK, and thereby unlock our great country’s potential for enhanced prosperity and security.

We launched the main report of this project in the Houses of Parliament last week, and it was tremendous to see the energy and enthusiasm in the room for the project and its recommendations.

It’s not wealthy individuals moving abroad we need to worry about. It’s our high-tech start-ups and SMEs, which we do not properly support. They then move abroad, attracted by US investors or offers in Europe.

How then can we be surprised when we are not growing the businesses and talent we need in the UK?

This failure to scale our science and technology businesses harms us in many ways. We lose out on skilled work and jobs, we lose out on the potential for large high-tech companies, we lose out on the potential for spin-outs, we lose out on growth, we lose out on our effort to tackle climate change in the cleantech sector.

Now we have to be realistic. As the Caudwell Strong Britain report highlights, we cannot compete on the scale of China and the US outright because we simply don’t have the resources.  But there are things we can do. We need clarity around the UK’s priorities and direction for science and technology, and we need to be bolder about how we go about supporting science and technology.

So let’s stop asking wealthy individuals if they’ll move abroad, and start asking – why are our science and technology start-ups moving abroad? They are vital to our prosperity.

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Follow @JohnDCaudwell on X, @johncaudwell on Instagram.

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