R&D tax credit

Hot on the heels of the Ingenious Britain report by James Dyson, the Conservatives have released a disappointingly limp Technology Manifesto. Although its key aims build on many of the promising ideas set out in the Tory commissioned Dyson report – in aiming to position the UK at the forefront of global technology and science based exports – it unfortunately lacks any great detail (I’m all for brevity but 11 pages?!) plus it appears to veer off track in many parts (not sure how publishing data like….public sector salaries over say £150k etc is going to put us at the leading edge of global tech commerce? Worthy aim, wrong manifesto).

To its credit it promises to implement many of the proposals set out by James Dyson as soon as possible which sounds promising plus it singles out R&D tax credits as being retained and simplified – although unfortunately no mention of increasing the tax relief to 200% as Dyson recommended (although this is still a vast improvement given the rumour that the Conservatives were, up until very recently, considering abolishing research and development (R&D) tax credits altogether in an effort to simplify the UK corporation tax regime.

There is also talk of implementing a superfast broadband network of 100mbps that is some 50 times faster than Labour’s proposed super broadband network but the detail on exactly when and how this will be achieved is also notable by its absence.

Overall, I am delighted to see that the Conservative party is choosing to focus its efforts on pushing the boundaries in making the UK a leading global technology and science friendly location to do business, we could just do with a little more detail – as we’re not the only ones with this lofty ambition.