Burnham must avoid ‘summer of speculation’ on tax, warns CBI chief

Rain Newton-Smith urged Andy Burnham not to neglect businesses’ costs – in particular, sky-high energy bills, a longtime CBI bugbear. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Rain Newton-Smith urged Andy Burnham not to neglect businesses’ costs – in particular, sky-high energy bills, a longtime CBI bugbear. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian Burnham must avoid ‘summer of speculation’ on tax, warns CBI chief Rain Newton-Smith calls for a new generation of public-private partnerships to fund major projects Andy Burnham must avoid another “summer of speculation” on tax and spend that would spook British business, the chief executive of the CBI has warned. As Burnham prepares to take up the Labour leadership on Friday, with a new cabinet to be announced on Monday, Rain Newton-Smith urged him to tread carefully. “What we mustn’t have is a summer of speculation where there’s kite-flying over, ‘we might cut spending in this area or boost that’ – or the more damaging one is, ‘we might increase this tax or maybe we won’t’. I think that uncertainty is just really difficult for business,” she told the Guardian. Labour’s last two summers were dogged by leaks and speculation about what might come in Rachel Reeves’s autumn budgets. One of Burnham’s key decisions is whom to appoint as chancellor, with briefing and counter-briefing over the possibility of the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, taking on the role . Newton-Smith said that, unlike some City investors, she was “not terrified of Ed Miliband” – nor of any of the putative candidates. But she stressed that whoever takes over should not “feel bounced into making decisions in the first couple of weeks” and instead should take the time to listen to business. “I would say, let’s walk to the right answers, not run to the wrong ones.” “What business wants to see is evolution, not revolution,” she added. “I think what any chancellor needs to do is early on set out a credible fiscal plan with fiscal rules that that underpin it.” View image in fullscreen Rain Newton-Smith in the Royal Box at Wimbledon last week. Photograph: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images She praised Burnham’s business-friendly approach to bringing investment and growth to Greater Manchester as mayor, and warned against some of the more radical ideas being floated by allies – in particular, plans for renationalising key utilities . “Renationalising things is incredibly expensive,” she said. “Obviously it depends on which sector we’re looking at, but what we do know is that private sector investment has delivered a lot of high-quality outcomes, and I think if you’re going to move away from that, there’s a huge cost involved and ultimately that cost falls on ordinary people.” Instead, she called for a new generation of public-private partnerships to fund major projects. “We need more homes, we need more reservoirs, we need more energy-efficient buildings. And I think we’ve got to be thinking about public-private partnerships.” With Bu