Former Osborne chief weighs in on Badenoch’s Nowak Bank post

Conservative shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith called on Chancellor John Healey on Thursday to rule out tax increases in the autumn budget, telling BBC Breakfast that fear of higher levies was already driving wealthy individuals out of the country.

“The taxes or the fear of taxes … are driving really big taxpayers to leave our country for overseas, taking hundreds of millions of pounds of tax revenues that will pay for public services,” Griffith said in an interview ahead of his first major speech since taking the post just over two weeks ago.

With the budget less than six weeks away, the shadow chancellor’s challenge came on a day the Bank of England was scheduled to announce its latest interest rate decision at noon.

Griffith’s 11 a.m. address was due to focus on small businesses and red tape. He was expected to announce the appointment of two advisers — Craig Mackinlay, a Tory peer, former MP and chartered accountant, and Robert Colvile, the outgoing head of the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank — to produce a report on cutting red tape for business.

“The thing that they (the government) could do right now is take off the table the fears of ordinary small businesses, the self-employed, who are getting up now, going to work, and allow them to get on with their lives with confidence that the taxes are not going to go up,” Griffith told the BBC.

On Wednesday, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch took to social media to respond to a Sun tweet that Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Nowak had been appointed a director at the Bank of England.

“Only one party has ever rescued the country from trade union control. We’re ready to do so again,” Badenoch wrote. “If you weren’t sure what kind of Labour government we have, or want to know what’s in store for you and your family finances, the news below is a big clue and it’s not good news.”

Nowak has been appointed as one of the Bank of England’s non-executive directors on its court of directors, which has up to 14 members. The court oversees the Bank’s administration and is not the body that sets interest rates.

Nowak is replacing Frances O’Grady, also a former TUC general secretary, who held the same non-executive directorship under a Conservative government. As was her TUC predecessor. The arrangement has been in place for decades.

Rupert Harrison, chief of staff to former chancellor George Osborne, posted on X to suggest to his Tory colleagues that they keep things in perspective. “Got no take on this particular candidate but worth noting that it’s been a tradition to have a trade union representative on the Court of the Bank for decades. Since the War I think,” Harrison wrote.

Thursday’s schedule also included 9:30 a.m. local government spending figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.