Today’s Budget offered predictable foundations. Next, the Government must back real ambition

In the immediate aftermath of Chancellor John Healey’s Budget announcement, the prevailing verdict across Westminster and much of the commentary was that it was decidedly unexciting. Outside of a one-off payment for households to support energy bills, there were no headline-grabbing rabbits pulled from the hat and certainly no dramatic fiscal pivots.

Yet from a business perspective, the absence of high drama is no bad thing. After years of political churn, the employers’ National Insurance rise of two years ago and sudden policy reversals that left businesses unable to forecast 12 months ahead, there is value in predictability. That provides the stable baseline companies need to commit capital, hire talent and make long-term plans.

As I have written previously, too often our national economic discourse defaults to hand-wringing over what is broken rather than asking what is working and how we scale it. Despite severe global headwinds and cost pressures, the UK economy has shown surprising resilience. While this Budget will do little to spark major economic growth, it at least should not set it back.

Incremental change can make the difference

In that context, this was largely a 'get-on-with-it' Budget — offering a series of targeted, practical measures designed to remove friction from everyday operations. This is no doubt consistent with the course that the new administration has set out since taking office in the summer. Small measures that make day-to-day life that little bit easier, even if it’s not yet the transformative change many are looking for.

For instance, the unblocking of physical regeneration will be aided by pragmatic regulatory adjustments. Pausing further major alterations to building regulations is a change that may not make front-page headlines. But speaking to business owners and developers, it is precisely these types of procedural backlogs that have tied up schemes in unnecessary red tape.

Inviting collaboration, not competition

We also saw more by way of continued momentum behind fiscal devolution. Providing Mayoral Strategic Authorities with a 20% share of retained business rates from April 2027 — paving the way for 100% of business rates to be retained locally by the end of the decade — alongside a £1.5bn ‘Good Growth’ borrowing facility offers local leaders meaningful levers to shape their economies. Manchester and the wider North West have proven that sustained investment works best when it responds directly to distinctive regional strengths rather than Whitehall directives.

Yet while the direction of travel is positive, at this stage perhaps it is a case of cautious optimism. A foundational principle of the Brabners True North network of high-performing privately owned, owner-managed businesses is that long-term prosperity relies on greater regional collaboration, not intensified competition. 

As fiscal powers are decentralised and revenues are raised and spent locally, we must resist any temptation to slip into a constant fight for funding between neighbouring towns, cities or combined authorities — something that at least partially scuppered the potential of previous Governments’ ‘Levelling Up’ agenda. 

Devolution needs to act to empower places to complement one another's industrial clusters, not undermine each other’s investment pipelines.

What comes next? Backing ambition

Crucially, while sensible tweaks and incremental administrative relief help firms manage day-to-day pressures, they do not solve the UK’s structural productivity gap. Privately owned, owner-managed businesses have spent decades anchoring their local communities, demonstrating a resilience and optimism that transcends political cycles. They want the freedom to perform, scale and lead.

Incremental stability is a welcome platform for today, but the true test of government follow-through will come with the upcoming 10-Year Plan and the next Spending Review. When those milestones arrive, policymakers must move beyond cautious steadying of the ship and back the bold, expansive ambition already shown every day by our regional business community.