MAGGIE PAGANO: When business veterans are worried about the state of Britain, it’s time to reach for the crash helmets

Lord Rose knows a thing or two about what makes business tick. He’s been at the heart of corporate life for more than 50 years, including as chief executive and chairman of Marks & Spencer, and then chairman of Ocado and Asda.

He is still on the Asda board, chairs Zenith Vehicles and petrol forecourt retailer EG Group, and along the way has worked at Burton, Argos, Booker, Woolworths and Arcadia.

So when Rose, 77, says that he has never been so disturbed about the state of British business, it’s time to reach for the crash helmet. Sky-high employment costs and regulations are now so restrictive, he says, they are hampering growth.

He gives the example of how the previous Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to hike employers’ national insurance cost one supermarket group an extra £100m a year. Multiply that across the economy and you can see why unemployment is rocketing and investment crashing.

Rose is one of more than 150 top business leaders to have joined a new Stop The Creep campaign, organised by the founders group Helm. 

They are calling on Chancellor John Healey to reverse the rise in national insurance, bring back entrepreneurial reliefs, and ask that ministers set out a business roadmap so founders can invest with confidence. If not, they warn, be ready for the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ for Britain’s budding entrepreneurs.

They are not the only worried ones. A recent poll by Helm showed only 6pc of business leaders believe the Prime Minister Andy Burnham is pro-business.

Employers warned the previous Chancellor her tax hikes would lead to jobs going up in smoke and less investment.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if the cost of labour rises, employers will reduce the number of jobs. And this NI tax rise, together with the minimum wage hike, was particularly harmful because it hurt the most vulnerable – the young looking for part-time work and women who want more flexible hours.

Nearly half of the almost 190,000 jobs lost from company payrolls since Labour came to power two years ago were held by those under 25, equivalent to roughly 150 jobs a day. There are more than a million so-called Neets, those who are not in education, employment or training, and the number is likely to jump again when figures are released later this week.

They will be joined by the thousands of new graduates flooding the jobs market, said to be the worst in a decade.

Recruiter Adzuna reports there were just 8,383 roles for university leavers advertised in July, a 45pc fall on a year ago. That is why employers group the CBI is also urging Healey to cut NI ahead of October’s Budget as well as introduce other sensible measures to help bring youngsters back into the workplace.

CBI members can also see what is happening on the ground in our boarded-up high streets, the shuttered pubs, the exodus of our brightest overseas and the tragedy of more than a million youngsters who are metaphorically on the scrap heap.

What a terrible waste. My own bet is that Healey is far too weak to reverse these tax hikes or, indeed, restore much needed business and entrepreneurial reliefs for fear of upsetting his ideologically driven and vengeful backbenchers.

How ironic that after only two years in office Labour’s legacy is record youth unemployment – one tragically made worse by generous welfare payments and removing incentives to work.

Blow the house down… 

Don’t be shocked to see neighbours ripping tiles off their roofs, pulling down their gates or bricking up windows.

It’s being called the reverse Kirstie Allsopp treatment: Doing everything you can to make your house look less attractive to avoid the proposed ‘mansion house’ tax.

Sadly, the new levy is no joking matter. And, like most Labour policies, it is almost certainly going to implode or lead to civil unrest because it’s so ill thought-out.

First, HMRC inspectors are not allowed to inspect your property without going to a tribunal, so there will have to be a change in legislation.

Second, has Labour considered the impact on the wider construction, building, home repairs and DIY market?

No, thought not.