Keiran Whitaker, who runs a start-up company with 12 employees, welcomes the chancellor’s move to encourage investment in new businesses such as his. “Raising capital in the UK is nigh-on impossible,” he says BEN GURR/THE TIMESFar from raiding pension savings, as expected in the budget, the Treasury is believed to be discussing plans to offer pension savers extra tax relief if they invest in innovation. It had been expected that the chancellor would cut tax reliefs and allowances for wealthy investors but, instead, he is looking to divert savings and investments into high-growth entrepreneurial businesses and projects. Mr Hammond told the House of Commons on Wednesday: “Today we’re publishing our action plan to unlock over £20 billion of new investment in UK scale-up businesses . by facilitating pension fund access to long-term investments and by doubling Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) limits for knowledge-intensive companies.”He spoke of the need to get pension funds more involved in “patient capital”,…

Source: The Times November 25, 2017 00:00 UTC