Robert Jenrick will lay out plans on Wednesday to scrap cumbersome EU data regulations that burden small businesses.
Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman said the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which mirrors EU legislation and was adopted as domestic law after Brexit, had “strangled” tech firms and small enterprises.
He said a Reform government would replace it with a light-touch approach pioneered in New Zealand as part of a wider push to cut red tape for businesses.
Mr Jenrick will outline the pro-business pitch on Wednesday, including a pledge to expand a tax-relief scheme for investors in small businesses, which would allow relatives to claim advantages more easily.
Reform said it would change the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme to ensure parents and grandparents could put up to £250,000 into their child or grandchild’s small business and receive an income tax rebate of 50 per cent.
They would also receive an exemption from capital gains tax if they held the investment for three years.
The party would also reverse the rise in employer National Insurance contributions and changes to inheritance tax on farms, and introduce a “hard work bonus” that would scrap income tax on overtime.
Mr Jenrick said the GDPR had “strangled small businesses and tech firms alike in a web of unnecessary regulation”.
“Ten years after the Brexit referendum, we should not still be following ridiculous EU privacy laws that hurt British businesses,” he said.
“For decades, governments have focused on big corporations while leaving small businesses to fall by the wayside. No more.
“Reform UK believes the six million small businesses in the UK are the backbone of our high streets and our economy and we will back them to the hilt.”
Firms have to comply with the GDPR if they collect, use or store personal data such as customer names, emails or employee records, regardless of the size of the company.
This can be a burden, particularly for small firms.
Reform said GDPR had cut investment in tech firms by 25 per cent compared with their American competitors.
It was introduced by the EU in 2018, two years after the Brexit referendum but before the UK left. Britain mirrored it in its legislation and it has remained ever since.
‘Rescue plan’
Nigel Farage, the party’s leader, said: “Small businesses are the beating heart of our economy, yet they have been suffocated by years of punishing taxes, suffocating EU red tape and a big-state obsession that rewards dependency over hard work.
“While the establishment parties drive small firms to the brink of closure, Reform UK is offering a bold, common-sense rescue plan.”
Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said: “This latest Reform announcement is a mixture of already-made promises and half-baked schemes that collapse on contact with reality.
“Reform’s policy on overtime has already been exposed as an unfunded shambles. Their VAT registration plans present another multibillion-pound black hole, inevitably meaning more taxes or more borrowing. And there is little detail on how their proposals to scrap GDPR would work.
“Investment tax relief schemes are vital for encouraging entrepreneurship, but Reform’s proposals to allow parents and siblings to use such schemes to reduce their tax bills by a quarter of a million pounds each would be a recipe for vast tax planning.
“These rules exist for a reason and Reform’s plan is yet another unfunded gimmick that would end up meaning higher taxes for everyone else.”
A Labour spokesman said: “First Reform want to rip up the Online Safety Act which keeps kids safe online. Now they plan to scrap vital safeguards that protect people’s private data.
“These unworkable and unserious plans are just a desperate attempt to distract from Nigel Farage’s secret £5m ‘gift’ from a Thai-based crypto billionaire.
“With Andy Burnham’s leadership, Labour is backing small businesses, reviving our high streets and driving growth in every postcode.”