Industrial strategy and Corporate Tax Roadmap

Industrial strategy

• Prior to the Autumn Budget 2024, the government published a green paper Invest 2035: the UK's modern industrial strategy, which sets out the government’s aim to create long-term, inclusive, secure and sustainable growth.
• The strategy focusses on eight growth-driving sectors, which the government believes offer the highest growth opportunity for the economy and business: Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy Industries, Creative Industries, Defence, Digital and Technologies; Financial Services, Life Sciences, and Professional and Business Services.
• Timing: the final industrial strategy will be published in Spring 2025 alongside the multi-year Spending Review.

Corporate Tax Roadmap

• At the Autumn Budget 2024, the government published the Corporate Tax Roadmap, which sets out their approach to corporation tax for the course of the parliament.
• The purpose of the Roadmap is to provide stability and certainty to businesses to encourage private sector investment.
• The roadmap sets out the features of the tax system that will be maintained for the course of the parliament, such as the headline rate of Corporation Tax, the current rates for R&D reliefs, and the current framework for the patent box and intangible fixed assets regimes.
• The document also highlights areas where the government expects to consider changes to ensure the tax system remains dynamic and up to date, such as a new process to give investors in major projects increased advance certainty and widening the use of advance clearances in R&D reliefs.
• Timing: a consultation on the tax treatment of pre-development costs will take place in early 2025 and other consultations will be launched in Spring 2025.