In advance of the Autumn Budget 2026 CIMA submits these policy proposals which focus on these key areas; tax reform to support businesses and grow the economy, giving regional growth the right structural underpinning, help SMEs move from survival and stability to growth, skills and professional education are economic infrastructure, creating a productivity mission with regional outcomes and providing certainty that businesses need.
CIMA’s key proposals in the 2026 Autumn Budget Submission were:
Reduce the tax burden on employment. Reduce Employer National Insurance through a lower rate and higher secondary threshold. If fiscal conditions prevent immediate reductions, commit to no further increase in the rate or reduction in the threshold.
Remove tax barriers to SME growth and productive investment. Develop a long-term solution to the VAT registration threshold, smooth damaging tax cliff edges in the tax system, maintain competitive investment incentives and introduce a Growth and Investment Test so that any revenue-raising measures minimise damage to employment, investment, productivity and SME growth.
Help ambitious SMEs move from stability to growth. Reinstate and modernise the Growth Accelerator as a targeted, co-funded programme providing SMEs with expert support and capability to address barriers to investment, productivity and scale-up, operating alongside a strengthened Business Growth Service.
Protect strategically important skills and professional education. Maintain Growth and Skills Levy funding for under-25s undertaking Level 7 apprenticeships that demonstrably provide early-career routes into strategically important occupations, alongside greater levy flexibility and extending the Lifelong Learning Entitlement to recognised higher-level professional education.
Give businesses greater long-term certainty and make productivity a sustained national priority. Introduce rolling five-year tax, business regulatory and policy roadmaps, assess the cumulative impact of policy changes on SMEs, and establish a long-term productivity mission with clear national and regional outcomes.