to ask how you would stop companies and investors leaving the UK?

[LargeDeviation]

AstraZeneca (the UK's most valuable company) has said they are thinking of delisting from the London Stock Exchange with a view to list in America. Other companies like Invidia, TUI, have also delisted. ARM is of course another one that got away.

At the same time, billionaires and centimillionaires are leaving the UK at the greatest rate ever.

Each delisting leads to redundancies or lower future growth. Each billionaire lost needs the equivalent of thousands of median income taxpayers to make up the tax lost.

What would you do to stop the rot? My solutions:

1. Incentivise listings: Allow extremely large bonuses and executive remuneration as long as they are tied to long-term performance. Remove stamp duty on shares. Bring back reduced oversight for AIM etc so small companies can easily list. Actively invest government funds in high-tech incubator companies (as long as it's done by the likes of the Vaccine Taskforce, not by idiot civil servants whose idea of good governance was to try to obstruct the OneWeb investment).

2. Incentivise share ownership in UK companies. Reduce dividend taxes. Revive the idea of the British ISA from Jeremy Hunt. Introduce low long-term capital gains tax rates (as many other countries have) to encourage long-term investing. Simply cutting Cash ISA allowances won't help.

3. Encourage entrepreneurs and the rich to come to Britian rather than leave. Reverse the non-dom changes. Large increases in IHT allowances, cut the top rate of income tax. These tax cuts can be conditional on providing a large number of jobs to British workers to make them politically palatable.

4. Cut corporation tax back to 20%. Sunak made a huge error in increasing corporation tax.

5. Ditch the Rayner changes which makes Britain even more uncompetitive.

Of course Labour won't do any of the above (or even acknowledge that companies/investors leaving the UK is a problem)...

Yes the anti paying in sentiment will mean we’re left with a very high state burden.

Illegally breaching their visa conditions.

Not unless they are earning a certain amount and have no dependents.

They have dependents. And main thing is, they broke the law.

100%

Only if they're working full time and legally paying ALL their taxes, i.e. declaring ALL earnings and not doing undeclared cash work.

Only if they've not brough their dependants with them.

Only if they're spending their earnings in the UK and not sending most of it back to their relatives in their home country.

Etc Etc.

Nail on the head.

• the scandal came out recently of over seas students who are supposed to be at a certain level of attainment in English, couldn't speak it .

They were on degree level courses and had fake certificates or real certificates from fake assessment companies. Then the fake student could bring their entire family over !!
And meanwhile causing issues on their actual course because they couldn't understand English.

It's one huge racket to get into our country and every way needs to be monitored.

And on top of all of this we have to tear up green belt to build more houses.

If they’re paying their taxes it’s irrelevant what they do with their money after that.

Oh gosh. They obviously don't declare all their earnings. They are builders. Cash in hand. Also they are here illegally

You said they were contributing to the economy - if they're sending most money abroad then they're not spending it here so highly unlikely to be a net contributor.

The naivety!

Do people working here illegally actually pay tax? Is it even possible? I assume they'd not have an NI number

Net contribution isn’t determined by how people use their post tax income.

Why do you ignore the fact that they are here illegally. If they send money back that's money leaving the UK economy and going elsewhere. If they spend it here that money is recirculated here.

So he introduced measures that took immigration from 200k to 1m but then introduced ones that reduced it to 500k and thats seen by some as a "success"

Anyway, the reduction in immigration is down to Labour, they ve been in for 12montths and anything bad that has happened is down to them, equally anything good is also on them too......

I know a few who came over on student visa for sham courses. Overstayed and are now builders

Surely thats down to us, not enforcing the law? something that Labour are at least starting to do....

I hope you've reported them???

btw agree with you on Sunak and green roll backs.

Do you have any evidence that immigration was at 200k under Sunak's premiership? It was at a record high when he came to office in 2022.

estimates from the Office for National Statistics suggest that total net migration was 431,000 in 2024. This figure represents around half of the level recorded in the year ending June 2023, when net migration peaked at a historical high of 906,000, but is above pre-pandemic estimates of between 200,000 and 300,000 (Figure 2).

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/

Thank you.
Sunak became PM in 2022. He wasn't PM pre pandemic so the 200K figure posted by the pp is not true. Agreed?

he introduced measures that took immigration from 200k to 1m

Sunak/Cleverly then introduced measures, kept by the current government, which have successfully reduced immigration. I thought we had agreed on that fact yesterday as you were not disputing the numbers, but questioning the efficacy?

Under his watch, he was also chancellor prior to this, rose to 650k in 2022, in 2023.... was 1m.....

Now, under Labour, its below 500k....

Not really sure why you re arguing against, the figures are easily available.....

Again, funny how anything bad is on Labour.... anything good, must be a previous Tory measure....

...as seen with inflation or GDP figures, must be all down to Labour.... nothing to do with the previous Govt.... oh no!

Why should i give credit to the Tories when all pro tory supporters fail to accept that they handed Labour a very bad economic legacy, not least on having to fund they NI cuts, which Hunt announced but did not budget for? its all "fastest growing economy and lower inflation"

Fastest growing economy is true. Inflation back to normal is true though.

Figures are available as are the policies which lead to the reduction. It’s easy to find and see why the numbers reduced, look at visa changes.

We’re in negative growth for last two monthly announcements so we’ll see how Labour deal with that.

Based on 1 or 2 months figures.... as the BoE pointed out, the falls to GDP and the increase in inflation were already built in.... if you look at the figures, it had been steadily rising!

On migration, i don't really see why credit should be given to the Govt that increased it from around 200k to 1m.... many of whom were dependents, so will not be in any shape or form net contributors.

Considering so many pro Tory posters are against most forms of migration, strange praise is offered up to Sunak.

@Alexandra2001
Sunak introduced policies which halved migration. Fact. Twist and squirm as much as you like, its still a fact. I am happy to credit Labour for continuing with those policies. It's the only sensible thing they've done.

Starmer and Reeves' handling of the economy is a total car crash compared to Sunak and Hunt.

Sunak also created more NHS appointments than Starmer has in the same period. Have a look at the figures, it will blow your mind.