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  "path": "/opinion/andy-burnham-movement-on-tax-economy-growth-lib-dems-joshua-reynolds",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-04T05:00:02.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gbnews.com",
  "tags": [
    "Membership",
    "The GB News Editorial Charter"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\nIf Andy Burnham wants to deliver a fresh start, he must draw a line under the current Government’s self-defeating tax grabs.\n\nWe need a serious rethink on tax, and a renewed emphasis on growth. A system that’s fair for working people and small businesses, while making sure that the corporations seeing the very biggest profits - the big banks and the social media giants - aren’t let off the hook when it comes to paying their way.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nIf Burnham is serious about fixing our economy, he needs to start with the terrible National Insurance hike, which is crippling our small businesses, destroying job opportunities for young people and hitting people’s pay packets.\n\nWe said right from the start the jobs tax would cripple growth. The very least he could do is exempt small businesses, or create a lower tax rate for part-time workers. What he cannot afford to do is turn a blind eye.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nTRENDING\n\nStories\n\nVideos\n\nYour Say\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nThe Labour Government has also completely failed when it comes to the unfair business rates system.\n\nOur local shops, cafés, and pubs are the lifeblood of our communities, but they are already struggling with high costs. Massive business rates bills are now pushing them over the edge.\n\nWarm words from Andy Burnham won’t be good enough. We need a proper overhaul, that will ease the burden on struggling high streets and stop penalising businesses for investing in their properties.\n\nAnd then there’s the tax raid on family farms and family businesses. Even after the Government’s partial U-turn, countless farmers and small businesses owners up and down the country are still worried that they won’t be able to pass the mantle to the next generation. Nothing would send a stronger signal of renewal than simply scrapping these unfair tax hikes and raising revenue in a fairer way.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nBut Burnham should not put even higher taxes on hard working people during a cost-of-living crisis, or penalise community businesses. We need to fund our public services fairly, by asking the biggest and wealthiest corporations to pay their fair share.\n\nTake social media companies. For too long, these tech titans have made billions from British users while paying a fraction of what they should. They exploit loopholes that small businesses could never use.\n\nOr big banks: they are currently making billions in windfall profits they never even expected, simply because of an unintended side-effect of the Bank of England’s Quantitative Easing programme.\n\nThat’s why Liberal Democrats have been pushing the Government to raise the Digital Services Tax, paid by tech giants, and to put a time-limited windfall tax on the superprofits the big banks are making. If Burnham wants fair taxes, he must put those ideas in action.\n\nMore than anything, what we desperately need to see is economic growth.\n\nThe best way to ease the burden on people and small businesses is growing the pie, not giving with one hand and taking with the other.\n\nWe’ve said Burnham needs to drop Starmer’s red lines on Europe, and start repairing the damage of the Conservative party's botched Brexit deal that has held our economy back and cost the country billions. Cutting the red tape and getting more money back in the coffers won’t just help businesses, it will let our economy grow, making it possible to end the cost of living crisis.\n\nFairness must be at the heart of our tax system and on this the PM-in-waiting has a clear choice to make.\n\nHe can repeat old mistakes by taxing hard-pressed people, farmers and high street shops; or he can show real leadership.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter**",
  "title": "Andy Burnham has a clear choice to make about Britain's tax system. Warm words won't cut the mustard"
}