Labour has let down business, says Cobra beer tycoon Lord Bilimoria

Let down: Rachel Reeves’ changes to inheritance tax threaten family businesses according to Bilimoria

‘I feel – business feels – with this Labour Government, let down. We are disappointed. And we feel we are not being listened to, most of all,’ he says. ‘As president of the CBI I saw the power of Government and business working together.

‘This Government had a 170-seat majority so they had the opportunity to be bold and cut tax, so long as they did it in a sensible way – not the Liz Truss way – but doing it in hand with business.

What would be on his New Year wish list? Reforming business rates, which in the UK are, he says, the highest in Europe. 

Have Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer, after courting businesspeople ahead of the Election, now betrayed them?

Cobra now a household brand

Bilimoria came to the UK from India to study at the age of 19, and set up Cobra in that South-West London flat in 1990 with £20,000 of debt. 

‘You cannot create growth by putting up taxes and creating an environment that doesn’t attract investment. It is private sector growth that creates the jobs that pay the taxes to fund the public sector. If you kill the goose that lays the golden egg, that’s it.’

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They are, he says, ‘very damaging to any family business’, though curry houses ‘somehow survive’ everything thrown at them. 

‘Then you have employment regulations coming in at a cost of about £5 billion that is going to make us less competitive. It is one thing after another.

He says: ‘I had that dream and I am proud to have created a household brand.’ 

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In the 1980s, when he arrived in the UK, entrepreneurship was ‘not at all celebrated’, he says. ‘It was seen as something for second-hand car salesmen and Del Boys.’

This type of deal has had bad publicity for enabling entrepreneurs to slough off their debts.

‘To think everyone in every corner of the country knows Cobra –that is amazing. We all love going to Indian restaurants. It is part of our way of life,’ he says. 

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‘I am going to be in this role with Donald Trump as president, so there will be lots of very interesting issues around trade coming up and tariffs on top of that.’

But do Labour’s changes to inheritance tax threaten curry houses, most of which are family concerns?

His excitement over his new job at the ICC is evident.

New Year, new job for Lord Bilimoria, who came to the UK from India as a teenager, started the Cobra beer empire from a flat in Fulham in his 20s and rose to the top of the business establishment.

He credits Margaret Thatcher for making it socially acceptable.

‘It is the biggest business organisation in the world, representing five million businesses, employing a billion people in 70 countries,’ he says, rattling off the statistics. ‘We are the only business body with a seat at the United Nations and at the World Trade Organisation.

‘I found them very decent, well-meaning individuals who said they wanted to champion business and entrepreneurship. But I’m sorry to say they have been in Government since July, and what is happening? 

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