Talented workers driven abroad by high taxation

High “stealth” taxes are driving talented people to work abroad, Conservative leader William Hague has claimed.

Employees are being “taxed out of work”, he told the Tory Party conference last week.

“The Conservative Party can see the damage being done to the economic future of our country and we see our talent going abroad,” he said.

He described meeting a young software consultant who said he was planning to move abroad because of stealth taxes.

Hague continued, “He just can’t understand how this country can ever succeed if he’s being taxed out of work in an era when business can go anywhere in the world and we need innovators so badly.”

There was little else on employment policy at the conference in Bournemouth, barring a small swipe at unions.

Earlier in the week, the new Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary David Heathcoat-Amory promised an end to “endless regulations and red tape”.

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And Shadow Education and Employment Secretary Theresa May told delegates that only 13,000 young people have found jobs under the New Deal – not the 250,000 promised by Labour.

• Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary Angela Browning was replaced by Heathcoat-Amory in a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle last week.