Thursday 27 October 2016 9:51 am

Attention Philip Hammond: CBI wants longer maternity leave and a £6bn investment boost in the Autumn Statement

As the unveiling of the chancellor's Autumn Statement draws closer, lobby groups are setting out their proposals in the hope Philip Hammond might listen.

The CBI has just unveiled its wishlist and it's calling on the chancellor to take on an £11.5bn shopping list of measures, that would fall to around £7bn by 2020/21.

The business lobby group says economic uncertainty continues over the UK's future relationship with the EU and its impact on firms' investment plans. So, the CBI wants an increase in average Public Sector Net Investment spending this Parliament to two per cent of GDP (currently forecast to drop to 1.7 per cent).

It says this would boost average annual public investment by £6bn and part of this should go to essential local transport infrastructure including through the Local Growth Fund.

It also wants maternity leave extended from nine months to a year to close the gap on maternity pay and childcare support. That would involve Hammond spending £2.1bn.

Hammond has said he would "reset" the public finances in response to the Brexit vote and expectations are brewing that spending will rise in the autumn statement on 23 November.

Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI, said:

"Amid economic uncertainty it's important that the government does what it can to incentivise businesses to invest today, rather than postpone until tomorrow.

Increasing the Annual Investment Allowance to £1 million until the end of 2018 and removing new plant and machinery investments from business rate calculations would make a real difference."

With significant variations in productivity between different parts of the country, Fairbairn thinks the top priority must be to set out a programme that gets regions across the UK "firing on all cylinders".

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