Britain's Third-Richest Person Says Government Is Killing Ambition And Growth
James Dyson at the WWD Beauty CEO Summit held at Cipriani South Street on May 07, 2025 in New York, ... More New York. (Photo by Katie Jones/WWD via Getty Images)
Britain's Labour government is pursuing a 'vindictive' agenda that threatens the future prosperity of the nation, according to James Dyson, one of the U.K.'s best-known business leaders.
'There are plenty of ambitious young entrepreneurs in this country,' Dyson wrote in a column in The Sun newspaper. 'But if the desire to be successful is punished, with tax and red tape, the talented and aspirational will take their ideas and leave. Those struggling to stay afloat will give up.'
He pointed out that his eponymous business is now based in Singapore, but it employs 2,000 people in Britain. In the last year on record, his company contributed £103 million ($139 million) in U.K. tax.
Dyson, who was knighted in 2006, is famous for developing high-tech reinventions of gadgets like vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and fans that sell in 85 different countries or territories.
Forbes estimates his current net worth at $15.3 billion, making him the third-wealthiest person from the U.K. on the World's Real-Time Billionaires ranking. But Dyson's success today is the result of an entrepreneurial journey characterized by resilience and determination.
Before his first bagless vacuum cleaner was ready for the mass market, he produced 5,127 prototypes, each made by hand. The thousands of hours (and dollars) he spent perfecting his first product brought him to the brink of bankruptcy.
And now he's worried that Britain 'no longer has the aspiration to create the Dysons of the future.'
Since Labour came to power in July last year, the government has raised taxes by more than £40 billion ($51 billion) and adopted reforms to the U.K.'s employment law, prompting many business groups to warn that the additional costs would result in job losses and higher prices for consumers.
Dyson said in January that the hike to the inheritance tax would destroy many family businesses and farms, a warning that he repeated in his latest opinion piece.
'Labour is out to destroy,' Dyson wrote. 'Those who aspire to create wealth and jobs, and those who grow our food, will all be punished. They hate those who set out to try, with hostility.'
A Treasury spokesperson said in response: 'We are a pro-business government. Economic activity is at a record high with 500,000 more people in employment since we entered office. We are protecting the smallest businesses from the employer National Insurance rise, shielding 250,000 retail, hospitality and leisure business properties from paying full business rates and have capped corporation tax at 25%--the lowest rate in the G7.
'We delivered a once-in-a-Parliament budget last year that took necessary decisions on tax to stabilize the public finances, including the NHS which has now seen waiting lists fall five months in a row.
'We are now focused on creating opportunities for businesses to compete and access the finance they need to scale, export and break into new markets."
Last week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the U.K. economy grew 0.7% in the three months to April 2025, compared with the prior quarter. But the nation's GDP contracted in April by 0.3% in the same month that Britain's higher employment taxes came into effect and Donald Trump unveiled his 'Liberation Day' tariffs.
The ONS also announced last week that the number of employees on payroll tumbled 109,000 in May, the biggest decline in almost four years. The figures took the total number of jobs lost since the October budget to 276,000.
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