Merryn Somerset Webb

We have, and you and I discussed this previously, we have a crazy tax system in this country, not just the level of rights, which we've discussed, but it's complexity.

21,000 pages among, if not the longest in the world, taking a chainsaw or a pickaxe to that rather than the pruning shears is absolutely what was needed.

And what's true of tax is also true of regulation.

Again, I used to be a regulator, for heaven's sake.

But nonetheless, the individually well-intended actions of now more than 100 regulators in the UK

nonetheless can collectively add up to a quagmire.

And that is where we find ourselves.

And on both regulation to a lesser extent on tax, this government, like its predecessors, has talked big and acted small.

And that will need to change if we are to have companies and households put their balance sheets back to work, Perrin.

Yeah, I mean, I think you're absolutely right.

In many cases, it's often less the rate of tax, particularly when it comes to corporate activity and starting a small business, for example, or anything like that.

You don't tend to think about the actual rate of tax when you do that.

What you do think about is the admin hurdles, the admin and regulatory hurdles.

And these are so difficult.

And we know, you know, in the great tax of billionaires saga that we hear all the time, we know that actually the majority of the tax gap comes from corporates, from small businesses.

And a lot of that will, maybe some of it's deliberate, but a lot of it is just, I can't do this admin.

It's just too hard.

As someone who set my own small business a few years ago, I've felt the full force of that.

And I've been absolutely, you know, I heard the,

howls of derision.